hello and welcome to this edition of on saturday, august 11. i'm qi zhi in beijing.
let's take a look at some of the major events that have happened in china and around the globe during the past week.
stay tuned.
the city of beijing formally marked the one-year countdown to the 2008 olympic games on wednesday night, with massive celebrations at tiananmen square in the city centre.
speaking at the event, liu qi, president of the beijing organising committee for the games, said the city will do its utmost to hold a successful olympics.
"we will provide the highest services for the athletes, sponsors and public from all over of the world. we will make the 44 disciplines of the 'good luck beijing' olympics successful ones, perfect the security system and improve the environment of our city so as to make a more solid base for the realisation of a top-class olympics with a unique character."
international olympic committee president jacques rogge voiced his confidence that china would deliver a successful round of competitions.
"beijing and china will not only host a successful games, but will also provide an excellent opportunity to discover china, its history, its culture and its people. cultural interchange, respect and understanding will be the win-win of beijing 2008 for the people of beijing, of china and of the world."
a huge singing and dancing spectacular was staged to mark the occasion.
inner mongolia, the first of china's five autonomous regions, marked its 60th anniversary on wednesday, with celebrations in the region's capital, hohhot.
delivering a speech at the celebration, chinese vice president zeng qinghong spoke highly of the region's development and expected the region to achieve more.
''we adopted the system of regional autonomy first in inner mongolia, and the facts show that it is successful and strong. we will stick to and improve the system to steadily push forward our socialist democracy.''
the region, where the people of mongolian ethnic group are densely populated, was founded in ulanhot on may 1, 1947.
an anti-terror military drill sponsored by the shanghai cooperation organization got underway on thursday in russia's chelyabinsk and china's urumqi, involving some 6,500 troops and 80 aircraft from the six sco members, china, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, russia, tajikistan and uzbekistan.
china has sent a total of 1,600 officers and soldiers for the drill, which will run until august 17. the russian commander of this drill, vladimir moltensky expressed his appreciation of china's full preparadness and devotion to the event.
"china has successfully sent the large-scaled troops and equipment here within such a short period of time. we really appreciate the capabilities of china's air force, as well as their efforts."
chinese president hu jintao is expected to travel to the region to observe the war game while visiting kyrgyzstan, kazakhstan and russia next week
representatives from six nations held talks on tuesday and wednesday on how to provide 950,000 tons of fuel oil, or an equivalent amount of economic aid, to north korea in return for the nation disabling its nuclear weapons program.
officials from the u.s., russia, china, japan, south korea and north korea gathered at the peace village of panmunjom. after the talks, south korea's deputy nuclear envoy, lim sung-nam said north korea is willing to move quickly on its nuclear disarmament, even if it has to wait for foreign oil aid.
"even if north korea's denuclearisation proceeds faster than the reciprocating economic and energy aid measures, north korea is willing to agree, based on the principle of mutual trust."
the working group meeting is one of several scheduled for august after pyongyang shut down its yongbyon nuclear facilities last month.
and that concludes this edition of . remember, if you have any comments or suggestions, or would like to listen to any of our programs online, you can visit our website at: .