The Communist Party of China (CPC) has announced a reshuffle of the leadership of provincial-level authorities in the early half of 2008, which will cut the number of posts.

The twice-a-decade reshuffle will involve positions in legislatures, governments and political advisory bodies of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and some major cities, according to a statement from the CPC Central Committee.

According to the statement, one of the priorities is to "cut the number of official posts." Next year's reshuffle will see an "increasing number of officials holding concurrent Party and government posts," the statement said.

The statement also stressed that the retirement age limit of officials be observed, but offered no detailed information.

Death Penalty

China may apply the death penalty to people who damage electric power facilities, according to a new judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People's Court.

Anyone who causes damage to electric power facilities that has serious consequences will be sentenced to either imprisonment for 10 years, life imprisonment or the death penalty. Serious consequences include killing one or more people, seriously injuring at least three people, or slightly injuring 10 people or more; causing a power cut for six hours or longer which affects 10,000 households or industrial production; causing direct economic losses of over 1 million yuan.

The interpretation said those who negligently damage electric power facilities leading to serious consequences will also be sentenced to imprisonment ranging from three to seven years.

Environmental Progress

China saw its discharge of sulfur dioxide in the first half of this year reach 12.63 million tons, a year-on-year drop of 0.88 percent, according to a recent report jointly issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), National Bureau of Statistics and National Development and Reform Commission.

Zhao Hualin, a SEPA official, attributed the decrease in sulfur dioxide mainly to the installation of more desulfurizing facilities in coal-fired power plants. Small coal-fired power plants with a total generation capacity of 5.5 million kilowatts were also closed to trim down sulfur dioxide emissions, he said.

The daily sewage handling capacity in cities also increased by 7 million tons in the first six months of the year. However, the emission of chemical oxygen, a measure of water pollution, rose by 0.24 percent to 6.9 million tons in the first six months of this year, said the report.

Standard English Translation

China has set strict standards on the use of both Chinese and English in the service industry to better meet the needs of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, according to a report issued by the Ministry of Education.

The report showed that China has regulated Chinese to English translation for services including washrooms, restaurants and hotels to help visitors more conveniently find their destinations.

The regulation includes translations for Chinese cuisine. And a coordination work team has also been established to carry out language training programs for ordinary people.

Statistics in the report show that by the end of 2005, more than 4.1 million residents in Beijing had learned a foreign language, which accounted for 30 percent of the total residents.

One World One Health

The Organizing Committee of the Fourth International Conference on Health Preservation (ICHP), which is to be held in October in Beijing, recently named Yongfu County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as the official model base for health preservation industries. Yongfu is the first Chinese place to earn such recognition from the annual conference co-sponsored by the Chinese Government and the World Health Organization.

Yongfu is renowned for its long-lived residents. The county almost doubled the internationally acknowledged longevity standard for a region of having seven centenarians in every 100,000 people.