China’s first home-grown fully-automated subway line Yanfang Line will undergo a test run in June after the construction of the route was completed on May 25. The line is expected to be put in operation at the end of 2017.

Yanfang Line, from Suzhuang to Yanhua, has nine stations and a total length of 16.6 kilometers and can run at a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour at the initial stage with a carrying capacity of 1,262 passengers.

The train’s every aspect — arrivals and departures, door opening and closing, cleaning, and more — will be entirely automated.

The automatic train operation system, built on the basis technologies of computing, communications, control and system integration, is a new generation of the urban rail network.

The train is driverless and the handling of emergency is fully automated without any on-train staff. Meanwhile, the staff of the train operation center will watch the running of trains, ensuring the safety of passengers.

According to the report by Beijing Municipal Commission of City Management, Beijing municipal government has planned to invest 2 billion yuan (US$292 million) in waste sorting and its infrastructure this year.

The capital city will establish demonstration zones for waste sorting, with each district having at least one demonstration street and the remaining streets having at least one demonstration community.

Measures such as “no sorting, no collection and transportation” will be taken to strengthen the implementation of sorting responsibility.

The amount of waste, however, has increased rapidly despite improved capacities of waste treatment. Other problems that need addressing include a sluggish market of renewable resources, shortage of recycling staff and surge in the amount of express packages and electronic trash.

The government will formulate a package of plans to further reduce the number of waste sources through measures involving importing clean or half-clean vegetables to the city, limiting packaging and the use of disposable goods, and promoting trade of used goods.

Additionally, four waste-sorting industrial parks will be built to ensure that household waste is recycled and treated without causing pollution.

According to the working plan, the system of waste sorting will become mature and the goals of less waste and more harmless waste will be realized by 2020.

The 2017 Beijing International Fair for Trade in Services, which inaugurated on May 28, has drawn 42 countries and regions to exhibit their cutting-edge products and services in six key sectors such as science and technology, the internet and information, culture and education, finance, business and tourism, as well as health care.

The fair has attracted 42 exhibitors, eight more than the last one, of which 18 are the new faces. During the fair, 14 countries such as Ireland, Switzerland and Spain, as well as delegations from Africa, South Pacific countries and Caribbean countries will hold 19 special promotions to show the advantages, projects and investment environment of services in tourism, finance and telecommunications.

Meanwhile, various products like the intelligent security lock, VR glasses, smart cameras, which embody the scientific and technological innovation of Beijing, make their debut at the fair.

At the booth hosted by Zhongguancun Development Group, the mobile phones using the technology of eye-scanning payment have caught people’s attention. The mobile phones, developed by Beijing IrisKing Technology Co., Ltd., have the iris-scanning system for safety recognition that allows users to simply look at their phones for online payment.

Interactive experiences are more prominent in the fair of this year. At the 3D skiing simulation of Beijing booth, visitors wearing ski boots on the 3D skiing simulator move their bodies left and right while staring at the screen before their eyes, as if they were in a world of ice and snow, sliding forward rapidly.

This skiing simulator from Germany can help schools get access to winter sports through scientific and technological means, which enables students to master skills through daily learning at school. At present, the training platform is available in eight schools in Beijing.

More smokers in Chinese cities are quitting the habit compared to a decade ago thanks to regional tobacco control regulations and improved public awareness, according to a report released on World No-Tobacco Day on Wednesday.

The quitting rate — which measures the percentage of participants who quit smoking during the survey period — rose from 6 percent in 2006 to 9.2 percent in 2015, Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), said at a press conference in Shanghai.

“Although the percentage has increased, it is far lower than in other countries,” he said.

The report was based on five surveys performed from 2006 to 2015 in both urban and rural areas, including the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Kunming as well as rural areas of Yichun in Heilongjiang Province and Tongren in Guizhou Province.

Around 800 smokers and 200 non-smokers in each area participated in each survey, organized by China CDC in cooperation with the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project.

The ITC project is an international research program to evaluate key policies of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). It is conducting surveys in at least 28 countries covering more than 50 percent of the world’s population.

The surveys in China found people in rural areas lacked knowledge about tobacco’s harmful effects to human health, apart from lung cancer.

The latest survey from 2013 to 2015 showed only 53 percent of rural participants knew smoking may lead to heart disease, 12 percentage points lower than in urban areas.

Only 35 percent of people in rural areas knew smoking could cause stroke, 5 percentage points lower than in urban areas, according to the report. “The results show tobacco control publicity is badly needed to improve public awareness in the countryside,” said Liang.

There are over 300 million smokers and 740 million people exposed to second-hand smoke in China. Over 1 million people die of tobacco use every year, with another 100,000 deaths caused by second-hand smoke exposure, figures show.

China has set a target to reduce the smoking rate among people aged 15 and older to 20 percent by 2030 from the current 27.7 percent, according to the “Healthy China 2030” blueprint issued by the central authorities last October.

Since China ratified the WHO FCTC in 2005, the country has made a number of tobacco control efforts, including banning tobacco advertisements, increasing tobacco taxes and putting forward regional smoking bans.

As of 2016, 18 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, had implemented regional smoking bans, and a draft of national tobacco control regulations in public areas is currently being reviewed, according to Song Shuli from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

“The local bans, which have covered one-tenth of our country’s total population, have provided reference for national legislation on tobacco control,” said Song.