Product quality improves in 2012

Product quality last year saw an overall improvement, especially in safety-sensitive items, China's quality watchdog agency said on Wednesday. Wei Chuanzhong, deputy chief of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said at a national videoconference that quality supervision and inspection authorities across the country sampled 20,355 products made by 18,791 enterprises last year. The results showed that 89.8 percent had improved in quality, an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the previous year.

Parents don't know about car safety

Research has found Chinese parents lack knowledge about how to protect their children in cars, according to a blue book published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Wednesday. The blue book cited research results that found 76 percent of car owners with children have not installed child safety seats, China National Radio reported. Forty percent of the parents have let their child sit in the passenger seat next to the driver, and 43 percent of parents believed it is safe to hold their child's hand in a car.

Mo Yan awarded title of professor

Mo Yan, the first Chinese national to win the Nobel Prize in literature, was awarded the title of professor by a prestigious Chinese university on Tuesday, China News Service reported. Beijing Normal University, where Mo got his Master of Arts degree in 1991, gave Mo the title of professor at the university's School of Chinese Language and Literature. Mo said at the ceremony that he was calm after winning the Nobel Prize despite the great honor, and that he is still a "writer focused on rural life".

Shanghai

City plans to build more schools

More primary and secondary schools as well as kindergartens will be built in Shanghai to meet increasing demand in the wake of a baby boom in the city. According to the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the city will build and renovate 1,042 primary and secondary schools and kindergartens by the end of 2015, and 80 percent of them will be in the city's suburban areas.

Plan aims to better food supply chain

Shanghai published an action plan on Wednesday to improve food-supply traceability systems that cover the metropolitan area. According to a statement from the government's information office, the traceability system will cover five wholesale markets, five food processors, 10 distribution centers, 200 supermarkets and 600 standardized food markets across the city, the statement said. Traceability involves tracing food along the supply chains so that recalls can be issued when quality issues surface.

Shanxi

Adviser suggests establishing office

A political adviser in Shanxi province has suggested establishing an office to deal with wage delays of migrant workers. Wei Zhongping said that staff at the office would be from the local labor force, the construction industry, the police and the judicial department. Wei was quoted by Xinhua News Agency at the ongoing annual meeting of the province's political advisers on Wednesday. Wei partly attributed wage delays to complex problems in the construction industry.

Yunnan

Man jumps to death after explosion

A man jumped to his death after detonating a homemade bomb in an office building in Kunming, Yunnan province, in an attempt to kill his boss on Tuesday over a suspected labor dispute. According to a report on kunming.cn, Yang Liming, 48, made the bomb with gunpowder from fireworks. Yang jumped from a window in the fifth-floor office after exploding the bomb, and he was found dead when doctors arrived at the scene. The employer was unhurt but the explosion injured another person in the office, the report said.

Zhejiang

Police search for missing official

Police are searching for an official in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, who is missing with at least 100 million yuan ($16.1 million) that he owes to 100 residents, China News Service reported on Wednesday. Jiang Gongkai, who is in charge of demolition work at the construction management office of Binjiang new district in Wenzhou, used his post to promise high returns to lure people to invest in non-existent projects, police said. Some victims said Jiang promised them 5 million yuan for an investment of 2 million.

Tibet

Lhasa welcomes 6.5m tourists

Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, received 6.5 million tourists in 2012, regional tourism authorities said on Wednesday. Renowned as "the city of the sun", Lhasa has seen a 26.5 percent year-on-year increase in tourist arrivals from home and abroad in 2012, according to the regional department of tourism. In 2012, booming tourism brought the city an income of 6.55 billion yuan ($1.05 billion), a 28 percent year-on-year increase.

Henan

Traffic officer taken for a ride on hood

A woman who drove more than 1 kilometer with a traffic policeman gripping onto the car's hood last week defended herself by saying that she was in a bad mood after learning of her mother's sudden illness, Zhengzhou Evening News reported on Wednesday. But her explanation and apology were widely questioned online. On Jan 17, Liu Yuhong, who was driving a BMW Z4, was stopped by Yang Huanzeng, a traffic police officer in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, for running a red light and having no license plates displayed on the car. Ignoring the officer's order to get out, Liu sped up and carried the officer on the hood for 1.3 kilometers until she was forced to stop by other cars on the street.

China Daily-Xinhua