China: Round Up on June 22
- Source: Global Times
- [09:03 June 22 2009]
- Comments
Medical service costs to rise
The amount of money people spend on medical services will grow by 11 percent a year over the next five years, a health official said yesterday.
Liu Kejun, from the China Health Economics Institute, said malignant tumors, cerebrovascular disease and “chronic” diseases are the three biggest threats to people’s lives, the China News Service reported.
Kong Lingzhi, deputy director of the ministry’s Disease Control and Prevention Bureau, said 80 percent of illnesses are now classed as “chronic.”
Anti-graft hotline opens today
A 24-hour hotline (0086-10-) 12309 opens today for people to report job-related crimes. The launch marks the start of a weeklong campaign organized by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) to increase awareness of such crimes and to provide a channel for people to report them.
The campaign is also to stamp out corruption among government officials.
The SPP’s new website, www.12309. gov.cn, also opens today.
23 children rescued
Twenty-three children have been saved followed a crackdown on trafficking, the Xinhua News Agency said yesterday.
Also, 18 people suspected of trafficking youngsters were arrested by the Wuhan Railway Public Security Bureau following an eight-day campaign.
The children, aged up to 8, came from Shanxi Province but were found in Shandong. Most are now in orphanages, while authorities try to locate their parents, CCTV reported.
Children sell for between 7,000 yuan ($1,000) and 40,000 yuan depending on their age and sex, Xinhua said.
Super rice growing well
Nearly one fifth of China’s rice paddies, about 5.6 million hectares, were used to grow high-yield rice last year, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.
The ministry approved 69 varieties of “super rice” strains, which output 10.5 to 12 tons per hectare, Bai Jinming, head of the ministry’s science and technology department, said.
Rice output in China averages 7.1 tons per hectare, against the global average of 3.9 tons per hectare. The development of super rice strains began in 1996, and cultivation began in 2005.
Media delegation leaves Tibet
A 17-member delegation of foreign journalists completed a four-day journey to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, yesterday.
During their stay, the reporters visited lamaseries, schools and the city’s railway station. They talked with lamas, students, herdsmen, farmers and tourists, and attended a press conference hosted by Gumbo Tashi, a Standing Committee member and secretary-general of the region’s committee of the Communist Party of China.