LIVING MUSEUM: A woman displays a cloth-weaving technique dating back hundreds of years, at a museum on Mosuo culture in Yanyuan County, Sichuan Province, which opened on January 22. Mosuo, an ethnic group with a population of 15,000, still retains some remnants of its culture of matrilineality, where family lineage and inheritance is traced through the mother's side of the family (XINHUA)

Security Commission

China's President, Xi Jinping, will head the national security commission according to a decision made by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee at a meeting on January 24.

Premier Li Keqiang and top legislator Zhang Dejiang will be deputy heads of the commission.

The commission, which will report to the Political Bureau and its standing committee, will be an agency of the CPC Central Committee responsible for decision-making, deliberation and coordination on national security issues, said a statement of the meeting.

It will be in charge of "making overall plans and coordinating major issues and major work concerning national security," it said.

A decision made at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee last November suggested with the idea of establishing a national security commission.

In an explanation of the proposed commission's main responsibilities that was made public after the session, Xi said, "Establishing a national security commission to strengthen the unified leadership of state security work is needed urgently."

Reform Assignations

China's leading group for overall reform approved the establishment of six sub-groups at its first meeting on January 22.

The leading group for overall reform, with President Xi Jinping as its head, was established upon a decision passed at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in November last year.

The deputy heads include Premier Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, and Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.

The newly established sub-groups will be responsible for reforms in six areas, including the economy and ecology, democracy and rule of law, the cultural system, social system, Party building system, and the discipline inspection system.

Speaking at the recent meeting, President Xi called for adequate understanding of the difficulty, complexity and urgency of reforms, as more and more interest groups will be affected as reforms go further.

Attendees of the meeting also explained and passed on the working rules of the leading group.

Employment Rate

China's urban unemployment rate stood at around 4.1 percent in 2013, according to a statement the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security made on January 24.

The unemployment rate edged up to 4.05 percent at the end of the fourth quarter of last year, from 4.04 percent at the end of the previous three-month period, Li Zhong, a ministry spokesman, said at a press conference.

A total of 13.1 million new jobs were created in urban areas last year, and 5.66 million people were re-employed after losing work, according to the ministry.

The gross revenue of social insurance funds increased 13.8 percent year on year to 3.29 trillion yuan ($543 billion), while gross expenditure totaled 2.65 trillion yuan ($438 billion), up 19.6 percent from a year ago, Li added.

China's social insurance funds contain five parts, namely basic pension funds, basic medical insurance, unemployment insurance, work-related injury insurance and maternity insurance.