2017-01-30 Special EnglishThis is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.Five hundred clean energy buses have been put to use in Tianjin, a major industrial city in north China.These public buses were jointly produced by Tianjin Bus Group and car maker BYD which is based in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province. The electric buses can run at least 200 kilometers after a full charge, enough for a bus to finish its daily task.The Bus Group also opened a major charging station, capable of serving 80 buses at one time and a total of 450 buses in a day. This is the largest charging station in the area which also includes Beijing and Hebei Province.Tianjin has 3,200 clean energy public buses. Among them, 1,300 are powered by electricity.China pins its hope on clean energy to reduce its dependence on coal and gas, which has been linked to the winter smog in northern China. Tianjin is among the cities with the poorest air quality.Since 2010, Tianjin has built 200 charging stations and 3,000 charging positions to encourage the use of clean energy transport. This is Special English.Australia&`&s flag carrier Qantas Airways&`& fatality free record in the jet age means it is the world&`&s safest airline, for the fourth year running.AirlineRatings.com announced the flag carrier atop its Top 20 list recently, followed by Cathy Pacific, Middle-eastern giant Etihad Airways, Singapore Airlines and local rival Virgin Australia, which are listed alphabetically.The website&`&s editor Geoffrey Thomas said that while those in the Top 20 are always leaders in safety, Qantas remains the leader in safety enhancements and operational excellence.Thomas said in a statement that over its 96-year history, Qantas has amassed an amazing record of firsts in safety and operations and is accepted as the world&`&s most experienced airline.Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years.Qantas was the leader in the Future Air Navigation System and the Flight Data Recorder developed by Australia&`&s chief scientific body to monitor the plane and crew performance. It also made advances in automatic landing and precision approaches in mountainous regions.The ratings website said Qantas was also the lead in real-time monitoring of its engines across its fleet using satellite communications, enabling problems to be detected before they become a major safety issue.You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Following 28 years of talks between China and Russia, construction has finally begun on a highway bridge connecting China and Russia across the Heilongjiang River.Stretching some 1,300 meters, this is the first highway bridge between the two countries. A Chinese official says the bridge is an important part of the economic corridor linking China, Mongolia and Russia. The bridge will boost trade between China and Russia, as well as China&`&s investment in Russia.Economists expect that the bridge will benefit both Russia&`&s Far East and China&`&s initiative to revitalize the traditional industrial base of northeast China.With a total cost of 2.5 billion yuan, roughly 360 million U.S. dollars, the bridge is scheduled to open in 2019.This is Special English.China plans to further improve its space debris database and space debris monitoring facilities. That&`&s according to a recent white paper entitled "China&`&s Space Activities in 2016".The while paper said that in the next five years, China will improve the standardization system for space debris to further control near-earth objects and space climate.Efforts will be made to build a disaster early warning and prediction platform to raise the preventative capability.Research will be conducted on building facilities to monitor near-earth objects and to enable the country to monitor and catalog such object