Good catch Fishermen return with their catch on Thursday at the Tanmen Port in Qionghai, Hainan province. The annual fishing ban in the northern part of the South China Sea was lifted on Wednesday. Photo by Meng Zhongde / for China Daily

Beijing

Timely reporting of accidents urged

Work safety authorities have urged departments to regulate their information systems to report work safety accidents in a timely manner.

Noting frequent accidents in the area, the Work Safety Committee of the State Council said in a recent circular that related departments should expand public supervision channels and report on safety-related accidents in a timely manner, including via e-mail and Weibo.

The committee also called for making improvements to the press release system in order to better respond to sudden accidents and increase the credibility of information.

China beefs up regulation

The central government on Thursday introduced tougher measures concerning the production of pharmaceutical excipients following a scandal involving contaminated medicine capsules.

According to a new regulation on the management of pharmacologically inactive substances used to carry the active ingredients of medication, the State Food and Drug Administration and its branches will raise standards for medical capsule cases when approving new medicines.

Capsule cases that are new on the market or contain greater safety risks should be registered and approved and their producers will have to obtain production licenses from authorities, the document says. Other capsule cases and their producers will be monitored, the document says.

No-bribery paper must be signed

Patients and doctors will need to sign a mutual no-bribery agreement before hospitalization, according to a draft guideline released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Health.

The agreement is a commitment between patients and doctors. After signing the agreement, the patients should not bribe the doctors while the doctors should not receive patients' red envelops with money inside. The agreement will be included in the patients' health record.

The draft guideline aims at guarding against any corruption in public hospitals. It is part of the effort to build clean hospitals in the second half of this year.

Liaoning

9 dead, 4 injuredin knife attack

A teenager allegedly killed nine people and injured four in a knife attack on Wednesday night in Liaoning province, local authorities said on Thursday.

The killing spree occurred at about 9 pm on Wednesday in Yongling township in Fushun city, the city's publicity department said in a statement.

The 17-year-old suspect, a native of Xinfu district in downtown Fushun, stabbed to death two of his girlfriend's relatives following a conflict with her, an initial investigation showed. He killed another seven people and injured four while fleeing the scene, it said. The suspect has been held by police.

Shanxi

Rescue under way at flooded colliery

More than 600 rescue workers pumped water out of a flooded coal mine to rescue 12 trapped workers on Thursday in Shanxi province.

Four of the trapped workers have been confirmed alive, and the condition of the other eight remain unknown, according to a spokesman with the accident rescue headquarters of Ji'anda Coal Mining of the Shanxi Luhe Coal-Chemical Group. The accident occurred at 4:17 am on Wednesday at a pit under construction in Hongtong county of Linfen city.

More than 2,500 cubic meters of water were pumped out of the coal mine from 10 am on Wednesday to 9 am on Thursday, and an estimated 7,700 cubic meters of water still needed to be pumped, said the spokesman. Rescuers are also rushing to dig a well to allow adequate ventilation for those still trapped in the pit.

Chongqing

Four rail workers killed by fumes

Four railway construction workers suffocated after inhaling toxic fumes in Southwest China's Chongqing municipality, local authorities said on Thursday.

The accident occurred at around 7 am on Wednesday when the victims were working underground to build a section of a high-speed railway linking Chongqing and Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan province, said a spokesman with Chongqing's work safety bureau. The four men passed out suddenly during their work and later died in hospital, he said.

The rail project was undertaken by a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company, a leading State-owned corporation.

Gansu

Officials punished for bus crash

Sixteen local officials in a Northwest China city have been punished for a deadly school bus crash that killed 19 kindergarten students late last year, authorities announced on Thursday.

The high-ranking officials include Zhang Longjie, the head of Zhengning county in Qingyang city, Lu Huadong, Qingyang's education chief, and Zhang Yufeng, former head of Qingyang's traffic police, according to a statement from the provincial government of Gansu. It said the punishments ranged from warnings to revocations of Party and government posts, but did not specify the punishments given to each official.

Nineteen preschoolers and two adults died after the school bus - a nine-seat van carrying 64 passengers - collided head-on with a coal truck in Zhengning in November.

Wall collapses at construction site

Four workers were killed and another two were injured on Thursday afternoon after a wall collapsed at a construction site in the city of Dingxi in Gansu province.

The wall at the city's Anding district collapsed at 3:45 pm on Thursday, burying several workers, the Gansu provincial production safety supervision bureau said.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Shandong

Deputy loses seat in local congress

A deputy has lost his seat in the Provincial People's Congress of Shandong over possible corruption.

Zhang Zezhong, 59, deputy secretary-general of Shandong provincial government, lost his seat for being suspected of "gravely violating the law and discipline" - a routine expression for corruption investigation - the report said. No further details were given.

In March 2008 Zhang began working in Shandong provincial government, where he was in charge of the provincial departments' public expenses, including the purchase of government vehicles and the construction of government buildings.

Guangdong

Classification of waste to be tested

Shenzhen will introduce waste classification in communities, officials from the city's urban management bureau said at a news conference on Thursday.

According to the bureau's deputy chief Ye Guo, the city in Guangdong province will set up 500 pilot communities this year in which waste classification will be introduced.

The communities are encouraged to purchase small waste treatment facilities and the bureau will subsidize part of the funds. Specific implementation will be carried out by the property management and cleaning companies, Ye said.

China Daily - Xinhua

(China Daily 08/03/2012 page2)