BRICS countries will enhance cultural ties via new alliances of libraries, museums, art galleries and children's theaters. The combined efforts of national-level institutions from China, Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa were announced at the meeting of BRICS ministers of culture in Tianjin on Thursday. "People-to-people connectivity is crucial for the development of the relationships among BRICS countries, and cultural exchanges are an important way to enhance such connections," said Minister of Culture Luo Shugang. "More concrete cooperation in cultural fields will better benefit ordinary people in the countries involved." For example, after the Alliance of Libraries is set up, the five countries will map out a series of substantial cooperative projects concerning book preservation, document sharing and digital libraries. Luo projected that cultural cooperation within the framework of BRICS will focus on fields including art performances, protection of cultural relics and development of the creative industry. Mahesh Sharma, Indian minister of culture, said that the promotion of global economic partnerships and international peace and stability are key pillars of BRICS, and intercultural dialogue is the social foundation for cooperation. More personnel exchange programs and training courses in the field of fine art will be set up, and BRICS art museum forums and fine arts exhibitions will be held every three years. Vladimir Medinsky, Russian minister of culture, said that cinematic cooperation can play a pivotal role. "We can thus discover more shared values," he said. "We also have some different values, but such coproduction can help to enrich each other's culture." Delegates from the five countries signed a detailed five-year action plan for the implementation of the Agreement between the Governments of BRICS States on Cooperation in the Field of Culture, which was first agreed upon at a previous meeting in Russia in 2015. In the area of cultural relic protection, BRICS countries will "jointly research the means to protect shared and trans-boundary cultural properties, and the possibilities of nominating these properties to be considered for inclusion in UNESCO's World Heritage List", according to the action plan. The parties will sign agreements on the prevention of illicit trafficking of cultural properties and monitoring their import and export, while cooperation among commercial sectors in the cultural industry, including animation, gastronomy and fashion, will be encouraged, it said. Xie Jinying, director of the Ministry of Culture's Bureau for External Cultural Relations, said that most previous international cultural cooperation with China was based on bilateral agreements. "However, more multilateral efforts are taking place now," Xie said. "If bilateral cooperation is a duet, multilateral cooperation is a chorus." Unlike other multilateral frameworks, which often involve China and other countries in a particular region, BRICS includes five representative countries from different regions. "It will thus create stronger international ties," he said. Xie also revealed that the conference in Tianjin marked the start of an annual meeting among BRICS ministers of culture, with the next meeting to be held in South Africa in 2018. [email protected]custom made rubber braceletsrubber wristbandsblack rubber braceletsadjustable wristbandstrio spinners
China launches two Type 055 guided-missile destroyers, widely considered Asia's biggest such combat vessels, at a shipyard in Dalian, Liaoning province, on Tuesday. [Photo/LIU DEBIN FOR CHINA DAILY] China launched on Tuesday two Type 055 guided-missile destroyers, widely considered Asia's biggest and mightiest such combat ship, according to witnesses outside a shipyard in Dalian, Liaoning province. Weapons enthusiasts published photos taken near Dalian Shipbuilding Industry, which has built two aircraft carriers, on internet military forums. They also described what they saw of the two giant ships' launches. When ships are moved into the water, their construction is basically finished. It is regarded as the most important step before sea trials. Water started to be pumped into dry docks where the vessels were built around 7 am, before the docks' gates were opened, witnesses said. Photos showed that there was a small launch ceremony at the shipyard with hundreds of workers standing in formation in front of the two Type 055s, each decorated with a huge national flag and ceremonial banners. Then the ships were pushed into open waters by several tugboats, the photos showed. The next steps usually are for engineers to test and fine-tune equipment already mounted on the ships and continue installing other devices. Then they will conduct mooring tests and sea trials before the ships are commissioned in the People's Liberation Army Navy. Four Type 055s have now been launched, but none are yet commissioned. The first of the class was launched in late June 2017 at Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, the second in late April at the same shipyard. Type 055 is China's newest generation of guided-missile destroyers. It has a displacement greater than 10,000 metric tons and will be equipped with new types of air defense, missile defense and anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons, according to the Navy. It has 112 vertical launching cells that can fire various kinds of missiles, including China's long-range land-attack cruise missile. Its firepower is thought to be twice that of the Type 052D, the largest and most powerful surface combatant commissioned in the PLA Navy. While the Type 055 is classifed as a destroyer, outside China it would be considered a cruiser as its large size and heavy displacement are comparable to that of the United States' Ticonderoga class cruiser. Li Jie, a senior researcher for the PLA Navy, said the vessel displaces about 13,000 tons. The latest version of the United States' Arleigh Burke class, the largest family of destroyers in the world, has a full displacement of 9,800 tons. South Korea's Sejong the Great class displaces 11,000 tons while Japan's Atago class displaces 10,000 tons. Cao Weidong, a senior researcher at the PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute, said that compared with other destroyers in the Navy, the Type 055 features stealth design, stronger strike prowess and higher information capacity and will tremendously boost the PLA Navy's long-range operational capability. He also said such ships will greatly strengthen the country's carrier battle groups.
