The death toll of China's massive earthquake increased by one to 69,196 as of Friday noon, the State Council Information Office said in a statement. The number of the injured stood at 374,176 and people reported missing dropped by four to 18,385 after the 8.0-magnitude quake jolted southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions on May 12.As of Friday noon, 96,402 injured people had been hospitalized and 86,947 have recovered and left hospital. There are still 6,810 people in hospital, the...[More]

China's central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) had donated 3.88 billion yuan (565.3 million U.S. dollars) and relief materials valued at 2.07 billion yuan by the end of June, said the industry watchdog here on Friday.Liu Nanchang, deputy director general of the bureau of performance assessment of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), said employees from the central SOEs donated 1.337 billion yuan, accounting for more than 34 percent of the total.Liu added that...[More]

Aggregate quake losses in China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have surpassed 80 billion yuan (11.4 billion U.S. dollars), more than double the preliminary estimate of 30 billion yuan, a State Council official said on Friday.The quake caused 41.4 billion yuan in direct economic losses to these SOEs, Liu Nanchang, official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) told an online interview.Electric and telecommunicat...[More]

Several new Chinese laws and regulations, including the amended Law on Protection of the Disabled, will take effect on Tuesday.The amendment is aimed at improving protection of the country's more than 83 million disabled ahead of the 2008 Paralympics in September.China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, told a meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in April: "Caring for the disabled is a sign of social progress and an important part of building a harmonious society."It sh...[More]

China is grateful to the support and assistance provided by the international community for its quake-relief efforts, the State Council said in a proclamation on Monday.An 8-magnitude earthquake hit Wenchuan, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, at 2:28 p.m. (0628 GMT) on May 12, 2008, causing enormous losses of life and property, the proclamation said.It said that when the Chinese people were suffering the catastrophe, the international community voiced sincere sympathy and condolences and pr...[More]

Chinese President Hu Jintao (R), also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, together with other members of the Political Bureau Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee, shakes hands with representatives of the party's grassroots organizations and members who had been honored for their roles in the rescue and relief work after the May 12 earthquake prior to their meeting i...[More]