Extravehicular activities Chinese astronauts have completed extravehicular activities (EVAs) and returned to the space station core module Tianhe, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Sunday. The first EVAs during the construction of the country’s space station were a complete success, the CMSA declared. The Shenzhou-12 spaceship crew, after approximately 7 hours of EVAs, have completed all the scheduled tasks, and astronauts Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo returned to the space station core module at 2:57 p.m., according to CMSA. Astronaut Nie Haisheng has been staying inside Tianhe in cooperation with Liu and Tang for their EVAs. Vaccines a public good China has provided more than 480 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the world, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in Beijing on Friday. Wang Wenbin said China is a firm believer in making COVID-19 vaccines a public good, and has provided the most vaccines to the world. He said China so far has provided vaccines to nearly 100 countries, and announced that it has pledged to provide the first batch of 10 million doses of vaccines to COVAX. Chinese vaccines are the first batch of vaccines obtained by many developing countries. CPC centenary The Communist Party of China (CPC) on Thursday celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, as its top leader declared the achievement of a milestone development goal and announced that the Chinese nation is “advancing with unstoppable momentum toward rejuvenation.” Addressing a grand gathering at the iconic Tian’anmen Square, where CPC forefather Mao Zedong proclaimed the birth of the people’s republic, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, hailed the Party’s success over the past century and called on the whole Party to continue its hard work and carry out “a great struggle” to achieve national rejuvenation. Xi delivered a nationally televised speech from Tian’anmen Rostrum before a 70,000-strong crowd. Xi declared that China has realized the first centenary goal of “building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.” China malaria-free The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially granted China a malaria-free certification as a token of celebration of the country’s successful elimination of the disease after 70 years of its struggles against malaria. From 30 million malaria cases in the 1940s, China brought down that number over the last decades, to finally achieve no cases in the last four years, the WHO said. “Today we congratulate the people of China on ridding the country of malaria,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Their success was hard-earned and came only after decades of targeted and sustained action,” he added. (SD-Agencies) | 