IN BRIEF (Page 4)

Beijing

Filed petitions on the decrease

Petitions filed across the country dropped by 7.4 percent in 2015 from the previous year, according to petition bureaus. Petitions involving irregular procedures or violent protests shrank by 38 percent last year compared to the previous year. The number of cases involving the public directly lodging complaints to the central petition bureau decreased by 6.5 percent year-on-year, China's security chief Meng Jianzhu said on Saturday.