IN BRIEF (Page 2)

Coast Guard to get surveillance vessel

China has built a second large maritime surveillance ship, which has been featured in photographs published by Chinese military enthusiasts. The photos, published on Chinese military websites, show Coast Guard 3901 at an unidentified shipyard. Judging from its appearance, all the major equipment has been installed, indicating that the vessel is likely to be delivered soon to the China Coast Guard.

Star Wars rakes in $33m on China debut

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the latest episode of the legendary science-fiction movie series, earned more than $33 million in its Jan 9 debut in China, ranking third historically after Fast and Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron. For the entire weekend, the movie convinced Chinese viewers to shell out about $53 million, according to Walt Disney Co, which owns the film. Disney said it hoped China, the world's second-largest box office market, would help this episode break the global record of $2.7 billion set by Avatar in 2010.

Capital to end rural coal use by 2020

The national environmental watchdog has declared that boosting efforts to cut air pollution in northern China, especially winter smog from the burning of coal, is a key mission for this year. Among the efforts, Beijing has declared that it will end coal use in its most rural areas by 2020. As much as "60 percent of smog content is caused by coal burning in the starting phase of each smog", said Fang Li, an official with Beijing's Environmental Protection Bureau.

Inspections tighten for plant, animal imports

China's gatekeepers will intensify inspections and quarantines of animals and plants for import and export this year to cope with increasing challenges of biological safety brought by increasing international exchanges.

Inspection and quarantine authorities across China intercepted 5,788 harmful species in 980,000 batches and stopped them from entering the country last year, Zhi Shuping, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said on Jan 11.

Xinjiang ratchets up anti-terror campaign

Xinjiang will continue to intensify its strike-hard campaign against terrorism this year, the autonomous region's chairman said on Jan 11. It aims to stop as many terrorist activities as early as possible.

About 98 percent of the terrorist attacks in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region have been prevented in the planning stage, the chairman said. Shohrat Zakir made the remarks while delivering his work report during the annual session of the regional people's congress. The region, home to more than 51 percent of China's Muslims, has always been at the forefront of the country's fight against terrorism.

Beijing plays role in Kabul peace talks

China is playing a more active role in hot regional issues, as the first round of four-party talks on Afghanistan was held in Islamabad on Jan 11. The meeting came one day after Vice-Foreign Minister Zhang Ming returned from a Middle East mediation trip following the abrupt break in diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing on Jan 11 that the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Committee to solve the Afghan issue sought to "create favorable conditions to push forward an Afghan reconciliation process" led by the Afghan people.

Maternity leave rises to spur second child

Mothers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shandong province are expected to have more days off work after giving birth under the new national policy encouraging couples to have a second child. The amount of additional leave ranges from 30 to 60 days as many provincial-level regions are soliciting opinions from the public and will implement new regulations this year.

The three regions followed Guangdong province, which was the first to overhaul maternity leave. As of Jan 1, mothers giving birth in Guangdong were given 30 more days for maternity leave. Their husbands have five extra days compared with the original 10 to take care of their wives and babies.

Report: First sex takes place sooner

China's younger generation is tasting the "forbidden fruit" of sexual intercourse at earlier ages compared with their predecessors, according to a report by Peking University's Center for Social Surveys released Jan 10. People younger than 20 had their first sexual experience with a person of the opposite sex at age 17 on average, the report said.

For those 35 or older, the average age for a first sexual experience was 22. The report was based on about 80,000 questionnaires collected across the Chinese mainland plus Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

More high-speed rail services for 2016

China plans to increase the number of passenger train services by 571 this year, including 563 high-speed services, according to the latest adjustment to the national railways plan. According to data released by China Railway Corp on Jan 10, 6,284 passenger train services now run every day nationwide, with more than 60 percent of them high speed.

Bumper crops swell grain reserves

China's combined grain reserve stands at a historic high, and the country will increase its storage capacity this year to absorb the mounting stockpile, Ren Zhengxiao, head of the State Administration of Grain, said on Jan 8.

The authority will encourage more private warehouses to participate, Ren said, adding that the storage expansion is aimed at protecting farmers' interests amid a saturated domestic grain market. China Business News reported that the combined grain reserve stands at 230 million metric tons, the largest in the world.

Children form secret 'anti-sibling' alliance

A group of fourth-graders at an elementary school in Qingdao, Shandong province, formed an "anti-sibling alliance" in an effort to persuade their parents not to have a second child. China ended its one-child policy this year.

Local media reported that a teacher surnamed Wang found that eight of her students were holding secretive meetings to discuss the issue. The students feared that any siblings would steal their parents' exclusive love.

Bullet trains a hit with foreign tourists

China welcomed more foreign tourists in 2015 and more of them preferred to travel around China by train. Online travel service providers China Travel Depot and Skyscanner jointly released an inbound tourism market report for 2015 on Jan 8. The report said that the number of foreign tourists who booked train tickets online in 2015 jumped 4.5 times.

Investors urged to diversify to lower risks

Individual Chinese investors should adopt a global approach and diversify investments to reduce their risk, a new report has advised after the latest turmoil in China's stock markets. Randolph B. Cohen, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, and CreditEase Corp, a peer-to-peer lending and wealth management company in Beijing, released a research report on Jan 9 that said more Chinese focus on saving money than spreading their assets, and have only short-term investment strategies for the stock market.

Nation to sink billions into new airports

China is to invest about 77 billion yuan ($11.7 billion; 10.8 billion euros) this year on the construction of civil aviation infrastructure, especially airports, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The agency said it would step up construction of important new airports, including those in Beijing, Chengdu, Qingdao, Xiamen and Dalian. Eleven key infrastructure projects and 52 upgrades or expansions on civil aviation facilities will be started this year, the administration said.

Man's father was rival for girlfriend

A 30-year-old man attacked and kicked another man he caught kissing his girlfriend on a Huangshi city street, only to discover the rival was his own father. The younger man, surnamed Li, became angry when he saw the pair kissing. The woman, surnamed Wang, said she started relationships with both men via WeChat, an online social platform, but didn't know the two were father and son.

(China Daily European Weekly 01/15/2016 page2)