Photographs of the first special Spring Festival train for students was the most popular front page image of the day, just like the "first peasant workers' train" a few days ago. For the upcoming Spring Festival, the Beijing Railway Department has added 25 temporary special trains for college students who live in Beijing. The pictured front page from Beijing Youth Daily features a photo of a student bringing eight boxes of instant noodles to the first special student train. The leading headline is:

Beijing (court) allows criminals to meet their relatives before death sentence

This is supposed to be a strict policy to ensure humanitarian treatment of prisoners.

One other hot news item today:

China: No expired food to tsunami-hit nations

The spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce Chong Quan said on Sunday that the Chinese government always attaches great importance to food safety and has never provided any expired food as aid to the tsunami-hit countries. Chong said some Indonesian media recently reported that the food China provided to the tsunami-affected areas in Indonesia was "expired" and "inedible", and the media also aired a close-up shot of the date "2004.12.10" on a food package. The rumor was spread by some people with ulterior motives and it is very evil. The production dates on the food aided by China are legal and qualified by Chinese laws and standards, said Chong.