DUCK AT HARBOR: The world's largest rubber duck, created by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, arrives in Hong Kong on May 2. The 15-meter inflatable rubber sculpture has visited 12 cities in 10 countries since 2007 (LI PENG)

Food Safety

China will punish the production and sale of unsafe food products more harshly to combat increasingly severe food scandals, judicial authorities said on May 3.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate have issued judicial interpretations that specify crimes related to food safety and set standards for the punishment of these crimes, SPC spokesman Sun Jungong told a press conference.

Some 2,088 people were punished between 2010 and 2012 in 1,533 food safety cases. The number of such cases grew exponentially in the three years.

According to the Criminal Law, there are two basic charges of undermining food safety. The first is producing and selling food that fails to meet the safety standards, and the second is producing and selling poisonous and hazardous food. But the charges should meet the important conditions of "enough to cause serious food poisoning and other food-borne diseases."

Free Lunch

More than 30 million students in rural China are benefiting from a nutritional lunch program launched by the government, according to the Ministry of Education.

At a May 3 video conference, Vice Minister of Education Lu Xin said that the program has covered more than one fourth of rural students in compulsory education in the country.

The program was launched in 2011 to improve nutrition conditions of rural students, each of whom gets a free lunch at school each day.

Polluters Punished

China's environmental watchdog punished 15 factories, as well as companies in two industrial parks, in the first quarter of the year for violations resulting in water or air pollution.

The factories either had their production suspended, were given a deadline to correct their practices or were ordered to move their projects to other places and compensate those affected, said a release from the Ministry of Environmental Protection on May 8.

The plants were punished for excessive or illegal discharges of exhaust gas and waste water, as well as noise and dust pollution, the statement said.

China's health authorities have demanded further efforts in establishing a long-term mechanism against overuse of antibiotics.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission on May 7 introduced this year's plan for promoting the reasonable use of antibiotics and containing the rise of bacterial resistance, as part of a national initiative launched in 2011.

Use of antibiotics by patients not in accordance with doctors' prescriptions is still a phenomenon in China, which not only results in an unnecessary economic burden but also harms people's health by causing bacterial resistance to antibiotics, the commission said.