Briefs | Shenzhen: Five arrested on terror charges after alarming busy subway

Five people were arrested for shouting “get down!” and causing panic on a subway train in Shenzhen while shooting a short video for online distribution. The five faced charges of fabricating terror for the incident on May 17, according to the Futian District People’s Procuratorate in Shenzhen. The procuratorate said that the suspects shouted “Everyone get down! Mind the landmine!” twice on a subway line during the evening rush. Their first try aroused little attention, but the second try rattled passengers, who fled the train as it arrived at the station, and subsequent trains were delayed. An investigation showed that they were shooting a short video to be circulated online. Internet video platforms have a huge following in China, attracting content creators from peasants to policemen to shoot videos to entertain viewers or to promote their job. The trend has also invited the occasional controversy for fueling public hoax and spreading rumors.

Hong Kong: PBOC to issue 30 billion in yuan bills

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said yesterdat that it will issue 30 billion yuan (USD2.9 billion) worth of central bank bills in Hong Kong on June 26. The issuance includes 20-billion-yuan one-month central bank bills and 10-billion-yuan six-month bills, according to a brief statement on the PBOC’s website. The move, which is aimed at improving the yuan yield curve in Hong Kong, follows three rounds of such issuances since November last year. To help expand the range of yuan-denominated financial products with high credit ratings in the region, the PBOC first issued bills in Hong Kong in November 2018 when 20 billion yuan was raised. It issued the same amount of bills in February and May this year.

Dongguan: Construction of 80-hectare materials lab begins

Construction of a materials laboratory started this week in the Greater Bay Area’s under-developed city of Dongguan. With an estimated budget of 12 billion yuan (around USD1.7 billion), the lab will cover an area of 80 hectares, consisting of main bodies such as public technology platforms, large-scale scientific facilities, innovative factories and an interdisciplinary science center. To solve the problem of high-end material demand in the fields such as information, energy, life and health and aerospace, the lab will carry out interdisciplinary research on the frontier of materials science. It was jointly built by the government of Dongguan, Institute of Physics and Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). “Whoever grasps materials can grasp the future. The lab will endeavor to make breakthroughs in key and core technologies,” said Wang Enge, an academician with CAS.