MASTER OF PAPER: Nie Fangjun, a 79-year-old craftsman, paints a paper dragon at his studio in Fenghuang County, central China's Hunan Province. His paper crafts were listed as a state-level intangible cultural heritage in 2008 (LONG HONGTAO)

More Grass-Root Delegates

The Communist Party of China (CPC) will include more delegates from the grass-roots level, including migrant workers, at the Party's 18th National Congress slated for 2012.

The minimum proportion of grass-roots delegates attending the event will be 32 percent, 2 percentage points higher than at the previous congress in 2007, said a statement released by the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee on November 2.

The maximum proportion of leaders and cadres will be 68 percent. Worker delegates must take up 10 percent of the total delegates and they should be made up of those from public and private enterprises in industrial and service sectors, the statement said.

Among the worker delegates, migrant workers will take a proper proportion, according to the statement.

The 18th CPC National Congress will be held in Beijing in the second half of 2012. The congress typically convenes once every five years.

Fingerprints for ID cards

China's top legislature adopted an amendment to the Resident Identity Card Law on October 29 in a bid to better protect the personal information stored in citizens' identity cards.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress approved a proposal which will make it compulsory for citizens to submit fingerprints when they apply for or change ID cards.

Lawmakers held that including fingerprints in ID cards would help identify people in a faster and more precise manner and would effectively curb the counterfeiting and altering of the cards.

The amendment also increased the punishment for those found guilty of leaking citizens' personal information.

The amendment will take effect on January 1, 2012.

Extending Compulsory Education

Shenzhen is considering extending its nine years of compulsory education to 15.

The extension would comprise three more years of both preschool and senior high school.

The draft proposal was submitted to the Shenzhen People's Congress Standing Committee for discussion on October 26.

Hu Xintian, Director of the Policy and Regulation Department of the Shenzhen Education Bureau, said extended compulsory education would require more government investment.

Last year, the city's kindergartens enrolled 111,000 children and senior high schools 58,583 students, bureau statistics showed. That means if compulsory education is extended, it will cover an extra 170,000 students each year.

Statistics also show the city's budget for education in 2011 was 9.06 billion yuan ($1.33 billion), accounting for 6 percent of the total government expenditure, up 35.4 percent year on year.

Biofuel Test Flight

Air China became the first Chinese carrier to conduct a demonstration flight powered in part by biofuel, demonstrating the alternative fuel's possible use in future commercial flights in the country, Xinhua News Agency reported on October 28.

The Beijing-based airline company, also China's flag carrier, made the flight with a Boeing 747-400. The jumbo jet took off at 8:30 a.m. and landed successfully at the Beijing Capital International Airport at 9:30 a.m. after the one-hour test flight.

One engine of the plane ran on a mixture of half biofuel and half traditional jet fuel. The other three ran solely on jet fuel. The test flight consumed more than 10 tons of biofuel, according to Xinhua's report.

During the flight, the aircraft reached an altitude of 11,000 meters. The flight crew conducted various tests to analyze the technical aspects of using biofuel.

The alternative fuel used in this flight was derived from jatropha seeds, which contain about 40 percent oil. It was developed and produced by China National Petroleum Corp. after 10 years of research and development.