Around China

Beijing

China to register all clergy members

China's religious affairs authorities will register all clergy members by the end of the year, in a move to help the public identify fake religious staff members. At a national conference on religious affairs on Tuesday, Wang Zuo'an, State Administration for Religious Affairs director, said in most of the country's provincial-level regions, more than 95 percent of clergy members have registered.

500m yuan for cultural firms

China allocated 500 million yuan ($80 million) to fund the development of centrally administered State-owned cultural enterprises last year, the Ministry of Finance said on Tuesday. The funds were used to support 41 projects in areas such as mergers and reorganization among 30 State-owned cultural enterprises, the ministry said in a statement.

Capital sets lower emissions targets

Beijing will continue to lower emissions of major pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen this year, local authorities said on Tuesday. The four pollutants are each expected to be cut by 2 percent from levels recorded last year, according to Qiao Shufang, an official with the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.

5 detained for fake alcohol

Beijing police have detained five people suspected of supplying fake alcohol to bars and seized more than 37,000 bottles of fake booze in a crackdown. Authorities said they received a report from residents in September saying a man nicknamed Laotou allegedly led a gang supplying fake foreign alcohol on "Bar Street" in Sanlitun, the capital's Chaoyang district, according to Beijing Public Security Bureau.

Qinghai

Highway pileup kills 8, injures 28

Eight people were killed and 28 others injured in a pileup in Qinghai province on Tuesday afternoon, rescuers said. A truck hauling coal lost control around 1:15 pm, causing a 14-vehicle pileup on a highway in Minhe county, rescuers said.

Yunnan

Accident on metro line claims 1

A driver was killed and another injured during a test run of a metro line on Tuesday in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province. A spokesman for the city government said that part of a test train on the metro line derailed, causing the vehicle's heating device to fall and hit the drivers. The city's first metro line, scheduled for a trial operation in February, was undergoing a non-loaded test run.

1 dead, 4 injured in cafeteria blast

One person died and four others were injured in an explosion at a school cafeteria in Yunnan province, local authorities said on Tuesday. The blast occurred at Kuixiang High School in Yiliang county around 8 am, when a gas cooker in the school cafeteria exploded, killing one cafeteria worker and injuring another four, according to the county government.

Henan

Children playing caused blaze

A fire that killed seven people in an unlicensed orphanage last week in Lankao county, Henan province, was caused by children playing with fire, according to the results of a preliminary investigation announced by local authorities on Tuesday. According to People's Daily, the fire started in the living room of the orphanage. The county's top civil affairs official Yang Peimin and five other officials have been suspended from their posts, pending further investigations.

Four students drown near school

Four primary school students were found dead in a brook near their school on Monday in Guangshan county, Henan province. The county government confirmed on Tuesday that the four, who were from Tiandeng Elementary School in the county, drowned in a brook 2 km from the school.

Hebei

Reservoir water quality restored

Water quality has been restored to meet national standards in a reservoir in Handan, Hebei province, which was contaminated after a chemical spill in neighboring Shanxi province, said local authorities on Tuesday. As of Monday, the overall quality of water in the Yuecheng Reservoir, the source of Handan's tap water, meets the national standard, said Hou Risheng, chief engineer with the city's environmental protection bureau.

Shanxi

6 dismissed following blast

Six people have been dismissed after a gas explosion killed seven workers at a coal mine in Shanxi province, sources with the mine said on Tuesday. The board chairman and general manager of Sijiazhuang Coal Mine Company, the Party chief of the mine, the chief engineer, the work safety director and the ventilation director have all been dismissed.

Guangdong

Suspended death sentence approved

A court in Guangdong province on Monday approved a suspended death sentence handed down to a sex pest who attacked and killed a fellow student. Ao Xiang, 22, was convicted of committing two sexual assaults, on Nov 20 and 21, in a women's dormitory at Dongguan University of Technology. In the second attack he suffocated a 19-year-old student to prevent her from screaming.

Xinjiang

Police confiscate 320g of heroin

A drug-trafficking suspect was seized and a parcel containing 319.6 grams of heroin confiscated by police in Kuerle in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, Xinjiang Daily reported on Tuesday. The suspect was taking the parcel, in which he had hidden the drugs, from Jinan in Shandong province to Kuerle. Officers seized the suspect and parcel on Dec 31.

Tibet

Region receives over 10m tourists

The Tibet autonomous region witnessed booming tourism in 2012, with tourist arrivals hitting a record high of more than 10 million, thanks to improved transportation and government promotion. The number of tourists visiting the region surged 21.7 percent year-on-year to 10.58 million, sources from the region's tourism bureau said.

China Daily-Xinhua