【推荐1】Qiao is a sixth grader at Yuhui Primary School.He is only 12 years old but has been smoking for three years.Liu,15，is a Junior 2 student at Chicheng No.2 Middle School.He began smoking four years ago.“Smoking is part of my life，” Liu said.Qiao and Liu are not those boys' real names.But their problem，smoking，is a very real problem.In many countries，smoking is becoming a bigger problem for young people.Most smokers start in their teens (years of a person's age from 13 to 19) or earlier.

A study of 8,000 Beijing students last May told us that smoking is a problem for many Chinese kids.More than 21% of middle school students and 6% of primary school pupils said they smoked.

“If young people start smoking early，they will probably get addicted to nicotine.And it will be very hard to give up later on，” said a professor.

Every year，about four million people die because of smoking.And if people keep smoking，that number will go up to about 10 million a year by 2030，the World Health Organization (WHO) says.So we have to learn and tell others about the dangers of smoking.

【推荐3】Chinese Emoji (表情符号) Circles Globe

“Funny”, a made-in-China emoji, seems to have recently moved beyond china. Now, it is more than an emoji, but a cultural expansion.

Reaching Global Markets

A series of “funny” emoji-based bolsters(抱枕)have attracted the attention of Japanese customers. Even if one bolster is more than three times as expensive as in China, it doesn’t kill their desires to buy it. One Japanese customer Miki said, “They are just so cute and I bought three bolsters at one time. And every time I see them, my mood just brightens suddenly.” A Japanese netizen Kiro Kara said, “My dad will send it whenever he doesn’t agree with someone but he has to behave politely.”

Addition to Domestic(国内的)Social Media

One commonly seen online comment from Chinese netizens is, “Every time other people send me the emoji, I feel very uncomfortable and consider myself as a fool.”

Released in 2013, the “funny” emoji is the updated version of its original one; “funny” has a smiley mouth, two eyebrows and a naughty look. All these characteristics present users a sense of satire (讽刺).

In Everyday Use Abroad

Earlier this year, one emoji from the Chinese basketball celebrity Yao Ming, who played in USA, has been spread through the Middle East region. In a city in Egypt, Yao’s smiling emoji has appeared in local traffic signs to remind people the road ahead is one-way.

As a new online language, emojis have been helping people express their views in a more vivid and precise way. Also, it can help foreigners learn about Chinese culture. But how to use “the fifth innovation in China” without hurting others and turn them into commercial advantages still need answers.

【推荐1】New Zealand has announced it will ban (禁止) smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally (合法) able to buy tobacco.

“The new law means the legal smoking age will increase every year to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders,” associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday.

The government announced the rising age alongside other measures to make smoking unaffordable and difficult to reach, trying to realize its goal of making the country entirely smoke-free with in the next four years. Other measures include reducing the legal amount of nicotine in tobacco products to very low levels, cutting down the shops where cigarettes could legally be sold, and providing services for smokers to give up smoking. The new law will not limit vape (电子烟) sales.

“We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it illegal to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to teenagers. People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally buy tobacco,” Verrall said.

New Zealand’s daily smoking rates have been dropping over time—down to 11.6% in 2018, from 18% a decade earlier. But smoking rates for Maori and Pacifika were far higher—29% for Maori and 18% for Pasifika. “If nothing changes, it would be decades till Maori smoking rates fall below 5%,” Verrall said. She said banning smoking in the next four years was within reach: “I believe it is. The issue is, though, if we don’t change what we’re doing, we won’t make it for Maori—and that’s what the law is really focused on”.

【推荐2】Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy is on a mission to recover ￡46 million of council cash. He has traveled to Iceland for high-level talks with Prime Minister Geir Haarde. Mr. Murphy has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to ensure the return to local authorities of the millions of pounds which are locked in crisis-hit Icelandic banks. He also wants to see the return of money deposited there by a number of Scottish charities.

Mr. Murphy said Scots councils and charities had invested in Icelandic banks in good faith before the country’s banking system was severely hit by the global financial crisis.

He said, “Our relationship with Iceland has traditionally been a very good one. But of course, there are pressures at the moment, particularly because of the international credit crisis and the collapse of the Icelandic banks.”

“There is money from Scottish councils and Scottish charities invested in some of those banks and I’m making efforts to persuade the Icelandic government that money should be returned.”

“We’ve made it very clearly, and we’ll do whatever it takes to support Scottish people to get their money out of the Icelandic banking crisis.”

The Scottish Secretary’s move has been welcomed by the Holyrood Parliament. The UK Government is currently trying to save ￡4 billion in deposits held by customers in the failed Icelandic bank Ice-save, at risk after its parent firm Landsbanki folded. The bank’s collapse caused a diplomatic argument after ministers froze assets of other Icelandic banks.

【推荐1】Electric vehicles are close to the “turning point” of rapid mass adoption thanks to the decreasing cost of batteries, experts say.

Global sales of electric vehicles rose 43% in 2020, but even faster growth is expected when continuing falls in battery prices result in the price of electric cars under the same petrol and diesel (柴油) models, which may happen between 2023 and 2025. According to a study by Prof Tim Lonton, at the University of Exeter, the tuning point has already been passed in Norway, where tax breaks (税收减免) mean electric cars are cheaper and the market share of battery-powered cars increased to 54% in 2020 in Norway, compared with less than 5% in most European nations.

The falls in battery prices in the last decade have been dramatic and faster than predicted thanks to a massive production and cuts in costs, such as reducing the amount of expensive cobalt (钻) required. BloombergNEF’s analysis predicts lithium-ion (锂离子) battery cots will fall so sharply that electric cars can match the price of petrol and diesel cars by 2023. McKin-sey’s Global Energy Perspective 2021, published on 15 January, forecasts that “electric vehicles are likely to become the most economic choice in the next five years worldwide”.

Electric cars, vital in efforts to fight climate crisis, are quieter and start to go faster, so people do not want to return to a petrol or diesel vehicle once they have one. A survey of 2,000 electric car owners found 91% said they did not want to go back.

“The survey shows the strong and lasting impact of switching to a clean car. The evidence in favor of electric vehicles grows more convincing even in a year as destructive as 2020,” said Melanie Shufflebotham, at Zap-Map, which maps charging points.