China Digest, February 25, 2013
Environmental protection officials urged Beijing residents to refrain from setting off fireworks yesterday - the last day they were allowed to do so for the Lunar New Year celebrations - because of heavy air pollution that again shrouded the capital in smog, The Beijing News reports.
Environmental protection officials urged Beijing residents to refrain from setting off fireworks yesterday - the last day they were allowed to do so for the Lunar New Year celebrations - because of heavy air pollution that again shrouded the capital in smog, reports.
Two men were arrested in Jiexi county, Jieyang , on Friday in connection with a violent incident in which several outsiders allegedly rushed into a village in the county and began attacking residents, the reports. A village official was wounded, several cars were destroyed and a nearby highway was temporarily blocked. The cause of the conflict was not given.
An abandoned primary school became a waste-disposal site just a year and a half after being built at a cost of 350,000 yuan (HK$431,230) in a village of Kaili city, Xinhua reports. The school, which has two buildings and eight classrooms, opened in March 2009, but there were never more than 40 pupils enrolled at any one time. Attendance fell to just 11 in September 2010 before it closed and the children were transferred elsewhere. Township-level education authorities said they had no idea the school closed, as it had been run by village officials.
Police have arrested a 12-year-old boy in Zunyi for killing a 66-year-old woman for a container of yogurt, the reports. The boy confessed to throwing stones at the woman and then trying to burn the body, which was discovered on February 10. The boy's mother died in a car accident in 2010 and he has been living with his grandfather since being abandoned by his father.
Roughly 54 per cent of rural youngsters do not want to take up farming, but about 55 per cent of young migrants from the province plan to eventually return to their hometowns, the reports, citing a study by the provincial Youth League Committee. About 100,000 rural youngsters in Hubei were interviewed, and nearly 30 per cent said they were saving money so they could return and start their own businesses.
A high school student in Xuzhou has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for stabbing a classmate to death in May, China News Service reports online. The judge said the boy, who is about 15 years old, was a troubled youth whose parents were living elsewhere as migrant workers. He lashed out after the classmate provoked him.
Municipal transport authorities said they were working on a new policy to help curb the rapidly rising price of vehicle licence plates sold at auction each month, but no details of the plan were given, the reports. The price of a car plate hit a record high of 83,300 yuan during this month's auction, on Saturday. It was an 8,300-yuan rise from the price last month and was the eighth straight month that prices had increased. The plate auction is meant to limit the number of cars on the roads and ease congestion. A total of 9,000 plates were auctioned off this month.
Applicants to New York University's Shanghai campus underwent an unorthodox interview process on Saturday, the reports. Applicants spent 24 hours on campus, participated in group activities, sat in simulated classes and interacted with students. All of the activities were conducted in English, and interviewees had to sign a confidentiality agreement about the process. The university is trying to recruit 151 mainland students.
A police station in Taizhou apologised on its microblog account on Friday afternoon after posting a picture that morning showing officers dumping confiscated fireworks into a local river, Xinhua reports.