PREMIER ON THE AIR: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (left) chats on the radio with residents from places hit by serious natural disasters during a live broadcasting program of China National Radio on December 26, 2010 (YAO DAWEI)

Buildup Plan

China's military buildup will correspond with the rapidly developing economy and enhanced national power, Defense Minister Liang Guanglie said in Beijing.

"A major aspect of China's strong national power, I think, is a strong defense," Liang said in a recent interview with Chinese media.

Despite growing national power and global influence, the international situation remains complex, while more and more unstable factors are shadowing China's security, Liang said.

The minister said China's armed forces could only depend on themselves, not others, to ensure modernization and the development of equipment.

"In the next five years, our economy and society will develop faster, boosting comprehensive national power. The developments will provide an even more stable material base to our defense and military buildup," Liang said.

E-waste Recycling

Offenders of China's new regulations on electronic junk, which became effective on January 1, could face fines of up to 500,000 yuan ($75,760).

The regulations could be regarded as the country's latest effort to promote comprehensive utilization of resources and an environmentally friendly economy, Wan Bentai, chief engineer of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said on December 28, 2010.

The ministry has introduced a set of supplementary guidelines for the regulations' implementation, which specify rules and procedures regarding issues including recyclers' qualification and governmental subsidies to e-waste recycling initiatives, Wan said.

Wan estimated that nearly 30 million units of televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and computers are discarded in China each year.

Those e-wastes, sometimes simply burned or soaked in strong acid, have severely polluted the environment in the past, said Wan.

Enlarged Coverage

More people enduring poor living conditions have been covered by China's social security system, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Various figures disclosed during the ministry's national working conference on December 27 show that as of last November, about 75 million people had been provided with minimum living allowances, an increase of 5.4 percent from the same period of 2009.

In terms of medical services, 8.58 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) was spent on aid. Nearly 60 million people were in need in the first nine months of last year, up 28 percent from a year earlier.

Drug Overuse

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has warned people of the dangers of drug overdoses in a report referred to the top legislature for review on December 24, 2010.

Figures from the report show that a staggering 10.4 billion bags of intravenous therapy drips were used for medical treatments in 2009, which equals eight bags for every person in China.

"The figure is much higher than the 2.5 to 3.3 bags per person set down by international standards," said Zhu Zhixin, Vice Chairman of NDRC, while delivering the report to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Periodical Chronicle

The Encyclopedia of China Publishing House unveiled Sixty Years for the Periodicals of the Republic in Beijing on December 25, 2010.

The book, with 1,342 pictures in 420 pages, is a chronicle for the development of periodicals after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, involving 1,232 periodicals during this period. It reflects the social and cultural development of China in 60 years with the history of periodicals' evolvement.