Coal mine death toll hits 10

The death toll from a coal mine accident in Southwest China's Guizhou province has risen to 10, after five more miners' bodies were found on Tuesday afternoon. Three more miners remained missing. Thirteen people became trapped underground on Friday afternoon at the Jinjia Coal Mine in Panxian county of Liupanshui city. Rescue work is still ongoing, according to information from the headquarters of the mine's rescue operations.

Guangdong

Anti-graft program to be launched

A pilot project aimed at preventing and fighting government corruption will begin after the Lunar New Year in Nansha district, a district of Guangzhou, the Guangdong provincial capital. Under the project, major Party and government officials will be required to report their assets, investments and the employment status of their spouses and children, according to an official with the Guangzhou Party Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Movie star misses CPPCC date

Hong Kong movie star Stephen Chow - one of 978 members of the 11th Guangdong committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference - will miss the opening of the annual session of the committee on Wednesday due to a tight schedule. Chow will try to change his schedule to attend the meetings on Thursday, his secretary was quoted as saying by the Southern Metropolis Daily.

Beijing

Short flights may halt food and drink

Passengers on flights lasting less than an hour may no longer be served food and drinks, under a new regulation issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The guidelines on improving cabin safety management, which take effect this month, state that flight attendants should perform only safety duties within 20 minutes of take-off and 30 minutes before landing, the Guangzhou-based New Express newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Gender imbalance remains grave

The problematic gap between the number of boys and girls born in China reduced slightly in 2012, the National Population and Family Planning Commission said on Tuesday. The gender ratio stood at 117.7 newborn boys for every 100 baby girls in 2012, a decline of 0.08 year-on-year, according to the census data released by the National Bureau of Statistics. The figure is still higher than the warning level but the country faces a difficult task in fixing its gender imbalance, an official with the commission said.

Documentary details SOEs

A six-part documentary on the development of China's State-owned enterprises started airing on Monday evening on China Central Television's channel. The series is the first to give a comprehensive account of the growth of the SOEs against the background of the Chinese and global economies. Over six months, the production team traveled more than 17,000 kilometers through China to record 450 hours of in-depth interviews, Jiang Shiming, the producer, said. The series will also disclose major events and figures related to the reform and development of the companies.

Shandong

Deep-sea base to start operation

Construction on a national deep-sea base will begin in May 2013 in East China's Shandong province and will be completed by the end of 2014, local authorities said on Tuesday. The deep-sea base is expected to begin operation by the end of 2014, said Liu Feng, director of the National Deep Sea Center based in the coastal city of Qingdao. The base will be a ground support station for the Jiaolong manned submersible, and act as an operations platform for large-scale deep-sea equipment.

Anhui

5 killed in car collision

Five people were killed and another was injured in an auto collision in East China's Anhui province, local police said on Tuesday. The accident happened at 2:05 pm on the No 201 Provincial Highway in Lingbi county. A car collided with a taxi and caught fire, and the taxi overturned into a roadside ditch, local traffic police said.

Hubei

Official accused of illegally hiring son

A finance official in Hubei province has been suspended and is under investigation on suspicion of abuse of power, Chinese media reported on Tuesday. Luo Shiqun, deputy director of the finance bureau in Xiangzhou district of Xiangyang, was accused of hiring his son to work in his bureau and has been suspended, the People's Daily website quoted the district's discipline watchdog as saying.

China Daily-Xinhua