Nation to introduce carbon tax: official

China will proactively introduce a set of new taxation policies designed to preserve the environment, including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Finance. The government will collect the environmental protection tax instead of pollutant discharge fees, as well as levy a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, Jia Chen, head of the ministry's tax policy division, wrote in an article published on the ministry's website.

New regulation on drugs released

The State Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released an updated regulation on practices for supplying drugs, which will take effect on June 1. The regulation, first issued in 2000, sets standards and requirements for companies in drug wholesale and retail on the mainland to help ensure drug safety and quality. However, pharmacies in medical institutions are not covered by the regulation.

More texts sent during holiday

Chinese sent a record 31.1 billion text messages during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, up 8.3 percent from a year earlier, new data has shown. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement on Tuesday that the number of messages peaked on Feb 9, or Lunar New Year's Eve, with more than 12 billion messages sent that day.

Yunnan

Quake topples 56 houses

Four people were injured when a 4.9-magnitude quake hit a border area near Southwest China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces at 10:46 am on Tuesday, local authorities said. The quake toppled 56 houses and damaged 815 others in Yunnan's Qiaojia county, the county government said.

Shanghai

Car plate pricesto remain high

The average bid for an automobile license plate in Shanghai is expected to remain high at the monthly auction to be held on Saturday. A total of 9,000 auto plates will be up for auction, the same number as last month, according to Shanghai Commodity International Auction Co. The average plate price in January was 75,332 yuan ($12,070), almost 6,000 yuan more than the previous month and a record high for a seventh consecutive month, according to the auction company.

Hubei

9 killed, 10 injured in road accident

Nine people were killed and 10 others injured after a minibus plunged into a ravine in Hubei province on Tuesday morning, the local government said. The accident occurred around 11 am in Jianshi county.

China Daily-Xinhua