You're listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing.
Five months after Beijing introduced a tough smoking ban, around 200 organizations and 600 individuals have been fined for breaking the regulation.
Beijing health inspection institute says the fines totaled 570,000 yuan, roughly 90,000 U.S. Dollars.
The ban, which has been in effect since June 1, prohibits smoking in all public indoor places, including workplaces and on public transport in Beijing.
Individuals caught smoking may be fined up to 200 yuan, while businesses may have to pay up to 10,000 yuan if they fail to discourage smoking on their premises.
Inspections show that schools, hotels and hospitals were the most strict when carrying out the ban, while restaurants have been the worst in enforcing the law.
An anti-smoking hotline received 9,000 complaints, with government buildings and officials' offices the focus of public attention. A total of 429 government organizations have received complaints so far.
A senior official from Beijing Tobacco Control Association says almost all law enforcement personnel in Beijing were mobilized to carry out the smoking ban during the first three months after it took effect. However, local residents are expected to take up more responsibility in the long run.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Train ticket sales are underway for the 40-day travel period during the Chinese New Year holiday. The hectic travel period surrounding the Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, will begin on Jan 24 and last until March 3.
The Spring Festival is one of the most important holidays for family reunions, with hundreds of millions of people traveling to their hometowns and putting huge pressure on the transportation system. The forthcoming Chinese New Year will fall on Feb 8.
During the Spring Festival holiday in 2015, almost 3 billion trips were made on Chinese railways, roads, airlines and waterways, up 3-and-a-half percent from the previous year. Almost 300 million trips were made by rail.
Passengers can book their tickets through the Internet, mobile app or by phone.
To cope with the massive passenger flow, the railway authorities plan to run 3,500 pairs of trains next year, an increase of 15 percent from 2015.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
Beijing plans to move most of its municipal departments to the suburban district of Tongzhou in 2017.
The Beijing Municipal Committee has announced that all or most of the municipal government's departments will move, as the office buildings are scheduled to be completed in 2017.
Tongzhou was designated as the site of a new administrative center for the municipal government to help relieve the current heavy pressure on public services in downtown Beijing, where the central government is located.
The relocation is also part of the integration plan for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, which aims to ease congestion in the capital and achieve more balanced development in the region.
