Suspects held Two plainclothes police officers hold three suspects allegedly involved in frauds, in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, on June 11. Police in eight provinces and municipalities recently destroyed 21 operations and captured 208 suspects in a crackdown on bank card frauds, Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. Photo by Wang Shen / Xinhua

Beijing

Big city residents have low satisfaction rate

Residents from Beijing and Guangzhou, Guangdong province, are not satisfied with their quality of life, compared with the other 33 Chinese cities, according the Chinese City Quality of Life Report released on Saturday.

The report, jointly released by the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Capital University of Economics and Business, was based on 9,516 effective samples from 210,000 phone calls. It showed residents' satisfaction rate on quality of life and the objective quality of life (based on social and economic indexes) among 35 Chinese cities.

Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou fell out of the top 10 for residents' satisfaction. However, these cities were in the top five on the objective quality of life list.

A high cost of living, mainly from high housing prices and inflation, was the key factor behind residents' low satisfaction, according to the report.

The 10 cities where residents are most satisfied are Changchun, Hangzhou, Shijiazhuang, Jinan, Hefei, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Qingdao, Xiamen, and Yinchuan.

The top ten cities for the objective life quality are Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi'an, Hohhot, Hangzhou, Xiamen and Wuhan.

Jiangsu

Protesters disrupt language guru's speech

Protesters disrupted a speech by the founder of a well-known language institute in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on Sunday, holding up signs against domestic violence and distributing material at the scene.

Li Yang, known for his high-energy Crazy English language classes around China, was accused in August last year of beating his American wife in front of their daughters. The couple is now in the midst of divorce proceedings.

When Li was giving a speech about learning English in a hall on Sunday, two protesters suddenly stood up and held signs reading: "English skills are easy to learn, but the pain of domestic violence is hard to relieve".

Hundreds of children and their parents were in the hall.

Li did not stop his speech, and within a minute, staff members from his team took the signs from the protesters and asked them to leave.

Li's wife, Kim Lee, posted photographs online last August showing injuries she said were caused by Li.

Taiwan

Red Cross gives funds to help disaster relief

The Red Cross Society of China has donated $100,000 to help Taiwan's disaster relief operations, the organization said on Sunday.

Funds will be mainly used to evacuate and shelter residents affected by the downpour that began to sweep southern and central Taiwan on June 10. Funds will also be used to purchase relief materials.

At least four people were killed in rain-triggered landslides and thousands were evacuated amid the heavy rain, which has also affected the city of Taipei.

Agricultural losses were estimated at about NT$503.7 million ($16.8 million), according to figures released by agricultural authorities on Saturday.

The local Red Cross organization has helped to evacuate more than 7,000 people and build 39 shelter camps for more than 1,400 evacuees.

Guangdong

Shenzhen government launches micro blog

The Shenzhen government on Monday launched its micro blog on t.qq.com, one of China's major micro-blogging sites run by Tencent.

The micro blog, called "Shenzhen micro blog release hall", is an integrated platform where different Shenzhen government departments not only release their information, but also reply to residents' inquiries and improve communications with them, according to Wang Jingsheng, a publicity department head of the Shenzhen Party committee.

The first batch of 29 members to join this micro blog include the governments of six districts and four new districts of the city, 17 city bureaus, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court and the Shenzhen People's Procuratorate, the city's prosecuting body.

Guangxi

Firefighters seek to rescue trapped workers

Firefighters in the South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region said on Monday afternoon they were rushing to find four workers buried in concrete after a plant under construction collapsed.

The unfinished manganese plant in Tiandeng county, Guangxi, collapsed at 2:40 pm when workers were pouring concrete, said an official with the county's fire department.

So far, rescuers have managed to pull four workers out alive, said the official.

Guizhou

1 killed, 20 injured in road accident

One person was killed and about 20 others injured when a passenger coach slammed into a truck on Monday afternoon in Guizhou province, according to local authorities.

The accident happened around 3 pm on a road in Qianxi county of Bijie city, which connects the cities of Guiyang and Bijie, a government official said.

Six passengers were seriously injured, and all the injured have been rushed to the hospital.

Tibet

Shooting starts on Tibetan language film

Shooting started on the Tibetan language film The Sky of Tibet this month in Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region, the film's producer Shanghai Film Group Corporation announced at the ongoing 15th Shanghai International Film Festival.

The Sky of Tibet is an epic story of two Tibetan boys from different backgrounds and families, who grew up together on a plantation more than 60 years ago.

The producer took three years to prepare for the film's shooting, said Ren Zhonglun, president of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation at the festival.

Film director Fu Dongyu said more than 10,000 extras were used in the film.

China Daily - Xinhua