Key meeting The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) started its fifth plenary session in Beijing on Monday. The four-day meeting will set the tone for the country’s socioeconomic development in the next five years and beyond. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a work report at the meeting and explained a draft document on proposals for the formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 — a top-level policy blueprint for China’s mid- and long-term development. Kashgar cases Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region had reported 164 asymptomatic COVID-19 cases in the city of Kashgar in total since Saturday, after a massive COVID-19 testing program following an asymptomatic COVID-19 case reported on Saturday. The National Health Commission on Sunday sent a working group to Xinjiang to oversee COVID-19 pandemic control work. On Saturday, a 17-year-old villager in Zhanmin Township of Shufu County, the Kashgar Prefecture, tested positive during a regular nucleic acid test. The patient has been placed under quarantine for medical observation. Age limit People over the age of 70 will be able to apply for a driver’s license starting next month after the Ministry of Public Security released a package of measures on Thursday that also expands exemptions from motor vehicle inspections. There will be no age limit for applicants for driver’s licenses for compact cars, compact automatic transmission cars and motorcycles as long as they meet physical and mental requirements under the new measures, which are aimed at better adapting to the needs of an aging society. Chinese students A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on October 21 urged the United States to stop discriminative actions against Chinese students and academics in the United States. For some time, the United States has been abusing judicial power to harass, interrogate, and even arrest and prosecute Chinese students in the United States under fabricated allegations, Zhao Lijian said at a daily news briefing. Many Chinese students underwent severe harassment at the airport from U.S. law enforcement authorities when they were leaving the country, he said.(SD-Agencies) | 