Disease specialist China’s top respiratory disease specialist Zhong Nanshan has been selected as a member of a panel appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to review the COVID-19 response. This was announced by the panel’s co-chairs, Liberia’s trailblazing former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark on Thursday. Reusable spacecraft China’s reusable experimental spacecraft successfully returned to its scheduled landing site on Sunday after two days of in-orbit operation. It was launched on board a Long March-2F carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Friday. The successful task marks an important breakthrough in China’s research on reusable spacecraft technology. University rankings Times Higher Education (THE) on September 2 announced that China’s Tsinghua University becomes the first ever Asian university to achieve a top 20 position in the rankings since the current methodology was launched in 2011. According to the THE World University Rankings 2021, Tsinghua University (joint 20th) climbs three places since last year despite a record 1,527 institutions qualifying this time round. US university A Foreign Ministry spokesperson has slammed the decision by the University of North Texas (UNT) to expel Chinese students, calling the move, if confirmed true, another example of the U.S. sabotage of people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily press briefing that China-U.S. humanities exchanges, including those of overseas students, have played a significant role in promoting the steady development of bilateral ties. Wrongly jailed man Zhang Yuhuan, a man from Jiangxi who was acquitted of murder and freed after spending 27 years in prison in August, applied for State compensation of more than 22.34 million yuan (US$3.3 million) on September 2. The application consists of 10.17 million yuan for Zhang’s wrongful detention, 1 million yuan for his following medical treatment, 10.17 million yuan for mental anguish and 1 million yuan for his expenses on appeal, according to his lawyer Cheng Guangxin. (SD-Agencies) | 