Brakes slammed on railways

BEIJING - The country's environment watchdog has ordered the operation of one high-speed railway to stop and halted construction on a second over violations of environmental laws.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection posted a notice on its website on Wednesday ordering the construction of the line between Tianjin municipality and Qinhuangdao, Hebei province, to stop because the project had not applied for an environmental re-evaluation after changing some of the locations.

Before this, the ministry issued a notice on April 25 asking the Jiaoji passenger railway between Qingdao and Jinan, East China's Shandong province, to stop operation because the line had not yet passed an environmental evaluation.