2017-04-24 Special EnglishThis is Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.Beijing has put a new medical care reform plan into effect, bringing an end to medicine price markups.More than 3,600 medical institutions are involved in the reform and all of them have abolished the medicine price markups. That's according to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning.It is estimated that the cost of treatment per outpatient will be reduced by around 5 percent on average thanks to cuts in medicine prices. There will be an average cost increase of 2.5 percent for inpatient treatment due to the growth of certain service charges.Community hospitals and medical institutions have been given the same access to the medicines usually prescribed in higher-level hospitals, so that patients can have more choices.Marking up medicine prices is a practice that has been adopted by most public hospitals in China since the 1950s. It allows hospitals to sell drugs with markups usually at a rate of 15 percent above the drugs' tag prices.The reform aims to effectively motivate medical staff to pay more attention to the medical service they are providing, and further improve the doctor-patient relationship.This is Special English.China has launched its largest operation to control air pollution in the northern regions. The operation has sent more than 5,600 inspectors to push the areas to meet ambitious pollution reduction targets.Unlike the nationwide inspections conducted last year, the yearlong, intensified inspection is being led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection.The inspectors will keep a spotlight on governments and companies in 28 major cities which are susceptible to heavy smog.Inspectors will check important areas including governments' implementation of air pollution control efforts. They will also shut down small plants with high emissions.Through the inspection, the ministry will push the governments and companies to fully implement measures to tackle air pollution.The ministry will closely watch the regions with pollution problems and stick with them until all the pollution issues are resolved.During a separate inspection, officials checked 450 companies and government departments. The inspection team found 280 violations, including companies that falsified monitoring data or discharged excessive pollutants.You're listening to Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.A recent cooperation deal between China and Kenya has become an important step for China's nuclear power technology to go global. The China General Nuclear Power Corporation announced recently that the company has signed a nuclear power training cooperation framework agreement with the Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board.Under the deal, China's Hualong One reactor is expected to be applied in Africa.The 1,000-megawatt water reactor was developed by the China General Nuclear Power Corporation and the China National Nuclear Corporation. It has reached the highest international safety standards to prevent leakage of radioactive materials and resist earthquakes.The China General Nuclear Power Corporation has formed a joint venture with Electricite de France SA to develop the Bradwell nuclear power plant in the UK, as well as to fund and design the reactor.The British government started an assessment of the reactor design in January. The process is expected to take around five years.Observers say there is a high possibility that the reactor design will pass the UK's approval process.This is Special English.Chinese scientists have extracted a medicinal compound from a natural herb called thunder god vine, which targets cell metabolism and could help tackle obesity.Celastrol, extracted from thunder god vine, and artemisinin, developed from sweet wormwood, are among five herbal compounds believed to have the most potential to treat