Diplomatic pouch | Mike Peters

Young Chinese violin virtuoso Feng Ning, winner of the 2006 Paganini competition, will team up with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra for a series of concerts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou next week. "We receive every year a lot of tourists from China in Lucerne," LSO executive director Numa Bischof-Ullmann tells China Daily, "so I think it's high time we pay something back in homage to their passion for our city."

The orchestra, Switzerland's oldest symphony, begins the concert series on June 28 in the Chinese capital, and Swiss ambassador Blaise Godet will host a reception for the performers backstage at the National Center for the Performing Arts. US conductor James Gaffigan, who won raves from the New York Times this month at the Spoleto Festival USA, takes the baton, and Turkish pianist Fazil Say will also be featured.

Bischof-Ullmann says the concert series is the LSO's first visit to China and its first collaboration with Feng. "We've heard him in a concert in the KKL Lucerne," he says. The orchestra has played with another Chinese celebrity soloist, the pianist Lang Lang and performed some works by Tan Dun.

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Amel Kovacevic, Bosnia and Herzegovina's ambassador to China, is on a fact-finding mission to Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, just two days after a similar trip to Nanning. "I want to use my time in China to see as much as possible, to learn, understand and identify fields of cooperation" between the two countries, he says.

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Pakistani Ambassador Masood Khan hosted a reception for the members of the Chinese search and rescue teams that visited Pakistan about a year ago, praising the Chinese workers for helping to save thousands of lives in many flood-stricken areas.

"You went to Pakistan with a caring heart, a healing hand, and a smiling face," he said. "All of you worked under difficult conditions. There was sweltering heat in the camps where you worked.

The reception, attended by nearly 200 guests, was also addressed by Major General Zheng Jingchen, president of the General Hospital of the Armed Police Forces, Deputy Director General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong, the Deputy Director of the China Earthquake Authority Yin Guanghui and the members of the relief and rescue teams that visited Pakistan.

Later, the honorees were served with Pakistani and Chinese cuisine and Khan presented gifts for their outstanding humanitarian services.

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Last week's Beijing International Education Expo 2011 drew about 80,000 visitors for educational seminars and face-to-face discussions with representatives of foreign universities, organizations and embassies. Institutions from the UK and US were the hot choices again this year. "We attach great importance to Chinese students who study in Britain," Ambassador Sebastian Wood told China Daily. According to figures from the British embassy, more than 90,000 Chinese students are studying in the UK.

Embassies and universities from Malaysia, Thailand, Canada, Denmark and several other countries also participated in the three-day expo.

Embassy news can be sent to mike.peters.cd@gmail.com

(China Daily 06/26/2011 page4)