DECORATIVE BOATS A lantern carnival is held in a Daishan County, Zhejiang Province, bay on June 15 to mark the start of a three-and-a-half-month fishing ban (XU YU)

Critical Economy

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on June 17 that China's economy is at a critical moment as it begins to "steadily" recover.

Wen told an executive meeting of the State Council, China's cabinet, that economic performance is starting to show positive changes, favorable factors are increasing and the overall situation is stabilizing.

He said the government should continue a proactive fiscal policy and appropriately accommodative monetary policy.

But the foundation for economic recovery is not yet completely stable and many uncertainties remain, Wen said, citing sluggish exports, the fiscal deficit and trade protectionism in other countries.

Rapid Urbanization

China's urban population surged to 607 million with an urbanization rate of 45.7 percent at the end of 2008, a report on Chinese cities released on June 15 found.

The urban population had increased by 148 million since 2000, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Blue Book of Cities in China.

In the early 1980s, the rural population accounted for nearly 80 percent of the total.

According to the report, China has 118 megalopolises of more than 1 million people. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang are some of the 39 super megalopolises with more than 2 million residents.

Regulating Gender Change

To change gender in China costs more than money. One must be single, at least 20 years old and free of a criminal record if he or she wants to have a sex change operation, the Ministry of Health stated in a draft of a new regulation.

Other conditions include a requirement that the candidate live publicly as the other gender for more than two years, maintain an unwavering desire to change for at least five years, undergo more than one year of psychotherapy and secure a commitment by local police to issue a new ID card after the operation.

The ministry posted the draft online to solicit opinions from its local bureaus, which are due by July 10.

The draft also sets thresholds for medical facilities and doctors that are eligible to offer sexual reassignment operations. Eligible hospitals must have an ethics committee to evaluate applications and a plastic surgery department that has operated for more than 10 years.

Alert Against Mutation

China's top epidemiologist said on June 16 that the country is closely monitoring for any possible new mutations of the A/H1N1 flu virus.

"We are well prepared for the battle against any possible new mutation in the flu virus," said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Zeng also said China's control and prevention measures may change, which will make the country's prevention work "more scientific, more specific and more cost-effective."

Crowded Cities

Nearly 80 percent of 15,217 urban Chinese respondents said that traffic jams plague their cities during rush hours, an online opinion poll conducted by the China Youth Daily showed. About 42 percent also complained about crowded underground lines and buses.

Those polled, all aged 20-40, are scattered among almost all Chinese provinces and municipalities, the newspaper reported on June 16.

Respondents suggested possible solutions to the problems might be to implement flexible work hours, more underground lines and buses and less use of private cars.

POSTMODERN LIONS A visitor views a sculpture named Dancing lions at an exhibition of graduate work at the China Academy of Art, which is displaying more than 100 sculptures and art installations (XINHUA)

AERIAL SURVEILLANCE A pilot inspects his helicopter before taking off for drug control patrol around Beijing's Yanqing County on June 13. The helicopter was used for the first time to help hunt for poppy plantations in suburban Beijing (TAN ZHIYONG)

COOL YOUR PAWS A zoo in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, uses ice cubes on June 15 to cool down the living areas of pandas and orangutans. High temperatures surpassed 35 degrees Celsius that day (JIN SILIU)

RISING FROM THE EARTH The third large-scale excavation of terra-cotta warriors in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, begin on June 13. The area was listed as a World Heritage Site by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in December 1987 (JIAO WEIPING)