January 5

The 7th National Civil Trial Work Conference was held in Jinan. The conference aimed to make a comprehensive sum-up of achievements and experiences since the 2000 National Civil Trial Work Conference, to analyze current situation and tasks confronting civil trial work, and to make clear basic requirements and comprehensive deployment for current and future civil trial work.

Addressing the conference, Xiao Yang, chief justice of the Supreme People's Court, raised the concept of "Judicial harmony" for the first time. He required the people's courts at all levels to create a harmonious litigation order and to focus on maintaining harmonious judicial environment. Representatives from Shandong, Beijing, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Hunan, Guangdong and Chongqing spoke at the meeting, exchanging their experiences in civil trial work.

January 10

Highly appraising China's government's efforts in rescuing the 5 Chinese workers kidnapped in the Nigerian state of Rivers, a commentator's article entitled "Ultimate Care for Life and Human-Oriented Ruling" was published on the French journal European Times.

January 10

Wang Yongping, spokesman of China's Ministry of Railways announced that from this year onwards, ticket price of all passenger trains will no longer be increased in the period of the Spring Festival travel season, putting an end to a 6 year conventional practice.

January 17

A draft regulation on the release of government information has been approved in principle by the State Council, China's cabinet, to promote government transparency. The regulation has prescriptions on the range of government information, release methods and procedure, and supervision. The release of government information will focus on issues of utmost importance to the public to safeguard the public's right to know. The regulation is viewed as a move by the government to improve efficiency and prevent abuses of power.

January 20

A reporting regulation of important cases concerning social insurance funds was formulated by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, which required the report of preliminary situation be submitted to provincial social insurance funds supervisory organs within 5 working days after the important case was discovered.

January 22

Decision by the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council on Comprehensively Strengthening the Work on Population and Family Planning and Solving Population Problemwas released. The Decision indicated that at present, China has entered an aging society. The aging problem should be actively handled. Strategic plan and policy for the cause of the aged should be formulated and implemented. Gradual establishment of old-age security system covering urban and rural residents should be emphasized in the building of social security system. An old-age service system based on home support, relied on community service and supplemented by institutional care should be established.

January 25

According to the Ministry of Commerce, China has made a series of new progress on intellectual property rights protection in 2006. Until the end of November 2006, China had established comprehensive intellectual property rights informant and complaint service center in 50 cities, which received 1014 informant and complaints and explained 24,221 consultations from the public and enterprises. At present, bilateral and multilateral exchanges and cooperation on intellectual property rights between China and other countries are omni-dimensional, wide-range and multi-tiered, covering many fields like trademarks, patents, copyrights, geographical symbols and commercial secrets, including many links such as legislation, administrative execution of laws, and civil and criminal justice.

January 25

China's State Council held a teleconference on clean-up of payment arrears in construction section. Zeng Peiyan, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council attended and addressed the conference. He indicated that governments at all levels must lay stress on the work of ensuring migrant workers get their full wages on time with the approaching of the Spring Festival. According to statistics from the Ministry of Construction, before the end of 2003, the construction section totally defaulted 186 billion Yuan in project payment, involving 130,000 projects and over 13 thousand enterprises. Till January 19 this year, 183.4 billion Yuan had been paid off, including 33 billion Yuan for migrant workers' wages.