REMEMBERING REFORM ARCHITECT: On August 21, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao presents a bouquet to the statue of late leader Deng Xiaoping during his inspection tour of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, five days before the 30th anniversary of establishment of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (LIU WEIBING)

Safer Schools

As most schools in China began the new semester on September 1, China's Ministry of Education called upon all schools and kindergartens nationwide to strengthen measures to ensure campus safety.

Local education departments around China should, as soon as possible, provide all primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens, with safety personnel.

Other safety measures should also be intensified to ensure a flawless campus safety system.

Schools in disaster-affected regions have also been asked to conduct thorough checks on school buildings affected by recent floods and mudslides, to eliminate any safety risks.

Anti-Drug Education

The Chinese Government issued guidelines calling for an intensified anti-drug education campaign for the whole country on August 24.

The guidelines, jointly issued by 18 government departments including the ministries of public security and education, urge anti-drug education to focus on key groups, such as youths, migrant workers and people in areas with frequent drug trade.

The document urges the drug education program to be conducted at companies, public venues, in communities and rural areas in a bid to "roundly promote people's resistance to drugs."

The instructions say anti-drug advertisements should be published regularly through the Internet, cell phones and other new media.

Traffic Woes

Beijing's traffic woes will get worse by 2015, experts are predicting. The city will have 7 million cars and traffic jams will reduce the rush-hour driving speed to 15 km an hour.

The situation will be unbearable if private cars continue to increase at the current pace, 1,900 cars every day, Guo Jifu, head of the Beijing Transportation Research Center, said at a symposium to discuss the city's traffic problems on August 24.

It took only two years and seven months for the number of Beijing's cars to jump from 3 million to 4 million, while Tokyo used 12 years to fill the gap.

Hygiene-conscious

A majority of Chinese people want the government to focus more attention on public hygiene, says a recent international survey, which interviewed 500 mainlanders.

The annual survey, conducted by Sweden-based Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, one of the world's largest paper products company, found that 85 percent of Chinese people feel the authorities and the media should give more importance to hygiene.

More than 5,000 people in nine countries were interviewed for the survey, which found an increased awareness of personal hygiene in the wake of the H1N1 flu pandemic last year.

Ninety percent of those polled in China said they thought more about their hygiene now than before the flu pandemic outbreak.

Now, 90 percent of Chinese respondents wash their hands more frequently, 70 percent clean their houses more often, 60 percent shower more often and 50 percent use antibacterial soaps more often than they did before the flu outbreak.