GDP growth China’s economy continued stable recovery in the first three quarters of this year with major indicators staying within a reasonable range, official data showed on Monday. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 9.8 percent year on year in the first three quarters, putting the average growth for the period in the past two years at 5.2 percent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. In the third quarter, the country’s GDP grew 4.9 percent year on year, slower than the growth of 18.3 percent in Q1 and 7.9 percent in Q2. COVID-19 task forces Task forces have been dispatched to four of China’s provincial-level regions, including Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia, to guide local COVID-19 response efforts. The working teams were sent by the National Health Commission and the national administration of disease prevention and control, according to authorities on Monday. Shaanxi Province reported six locally transmitted COVID-19 confirmed cases and one asymptomatic case between Sunday and 7 a.m. on Monday. Shenzhou-13 astronauts The Shenzhou-13 crew has entered the Tianzhou-3 cargo craft to transfer the cargo, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on Sunday. The Shenzhou-13 spaceship was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China’s Gobi Desert on Saturday. After successfully stationing in China’s space station core module Tianhe, the Shenzhou-13 crew opened the hatch of the Tianzhou-3 cargo craft and entered it at 9:50 a.m., the CMSA said. Hybrid rice yield The third-generation hybrid rice developed by Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice,” and his team achieved a new record of yield in rice fields in Hunan Province. The new record of the hybrid rice planted in Qingzhu Village, Hengyang City, one of the hybrid rice’s experimental fields, reached 1,603.9 kg per mu (667 square meters). Among the output of the hybrid rice, the yield of early rice came to 667.8 kg per mu in the test fields, and that of late-season rice stood at 936.1 kg per mu. Kunming Declaration The Kunming Declaration was adopted last week at the ongoing 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in Kunming, Yunnan Province. The Kunming Declaration is a political declaration and the main achievement of this conference. The declaration commits to ensuring the development, adoption and implementation of an effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework to reverse the current loss of biodiversity and ensure that biodiversity is put on a path to recovery by 2030 at the latest, towards the full realization of the 2050 Vision of “Living in Harmony with Nature.”(SD-Agencies) | 