CHEERLEADING BEARS: Six pandas from Bifengxia Panda Base in Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province, leave their home on October 27 for Guangzhou to meet with visitors during the 16th Asian Games (ZHENG CHANGXIA)

Super Bug

China's health authorities announced the country's first three cases of NDM-1, a multi-drug resistant super bacterium, on October 26.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official Ni Daxin said at a press conference that two cases were detected from samples submitted by the local CDC in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and one from southeastern Fujian Province.

The samples from Ningxia were drawn from feces of two infants born on March 8 and March 11. Both were born underweight and showed symptoms of diarrhea and respiratory infections two days after birth. One suffered an oxygen deficiency.

One of the babies recovered after nine days in hospital and the other after 14 days. They remained healthy, said Ni.

Although the two babies were diagnosed as carrying the NDM-1 bacteria, there was no link between the bacteria and their illnesses.

The other sample from Fujian was from an 83-year-old, who died on June 11. Ni said the primary cause of death was late-term lung cancer, and the role of the drug-resistant bacteria in the development of the illness was unclear.

Space Ambition

China has formally begun its manned space station program, aiming to complete construction of a "relatively large" manned space laboratory around 2020, said a spokesman for the national manned space program on October 27.

China was aiming to develop and launch the first part of a space laboratory before 2016, focusing on breakthroughs in living conditions for astronauts and research applications, the spokesman said.

The country will develop and launch a core cabin and a second laboratory module around 2020, which will be assembled in orbit.

Food Inspection

China's food safety authorities have started a nationwide campaign to supervise local governments in tackling problems such as "gutter oil" and problematic milk powder.

The State Council's Food Safety Commission said on October 26 that local governments had made progress since they launched the campaign last year and a new inspection would assess whether their work was "effective."

The campaign will reinforce local government efforts in rectifying the country's milk powder industry, which was scarred by a melamine-tainted milk scandal in 2008 that caused at least six infant deaths and sickened 300,000.

In July, the State Council ordered food safety authorities to eradicate "gutter oil," usually made from discarded kitchen waste that has been refined, after media reports that it was commonly used by small restaurants.

Expo Gold

The Shanghai Expo will generate more than 80 billion yuan ($11.9 billion) in tourism revenues for Shanghai and neighboring Yangtze River cities, the China Tourism Academy (CTA) estimated on October 26.

Expo-related tourism should lead to a 20-percent increase year on year in aviation, foreign trade, retail sectors, and accommodation and catering in Shanghai and neighboring cities, said a CTA official.

The Shanghai Expo had met the goal of receiving 70 million visitors, including 3.5 million from overseas, Shao Qiwei, head of China's National Tourism Administration, said.

The total attendance at the 184-day fair in Shanghai broke the record held by 1970 Osaka World Expo in Japan, which attracted 64 million visitors, data from the Expo Bureau showed.