Beijing Times
February 21, 2008

It's the Lantern Festival this evening, the last day of the two-week-long Spring Festival holiday. The photo on the front page of today's Beijing Times shows a fantastic laser expo last night at Yongdingmen, in Beijing's Chongwen District. This expo will continue through tomorrow night and is free for everyone.

The top headline announces that the Beijing Federation of Trade Unions has adjusted five types of insurance plans that offer serious illness coverage for workers in the city. The premium for a policy that provides up to 10,100 of coverage on nine different medical conditions has dropped from 198 yuan to 90 yuan.

Other headlines:

• BOCOG announced at a conference yesterday that no Games sponsors have withdrawn as a result of pressure from certain international organizations over the Darfur issue. However, no related articles or announcements have turned up on BOCOG's official bilingual website.

• Beijing will start trials of Peking Opera lessons in twenty primary and junior-high schools as part of a future nationwide roll-out. Many of the operas are the so-called "model operas" that were composed during the 1960s and 70s.

• The paper relates a Reuters report that nineteen Asian and European countries has pledged to invest about $43 billion to revitalize the ancient Silk Road that once joined the two continents.

• China was beaten by Japan, 0-1, at the East Asian Football Championship yesterday in Chongqing.