In order to implement the State Council’s requirements for increasing control over social stability, the Chinese Ministry of Health recently released a Guideline on assessing the risks of health related social emergencies. The Guideline includes seven features: (1) acknowledging the importance of health related risk assessment; (2) the basic requirements of the assessments; (3) the scope of the Guideline, especially for events triggering large scale social emergencies; (4) key assessment areas such as “controllability;” (5) the organizational and responsibility structures of the assessment system; (6) the fundamental procedures for the assessment process; (7) measuring the quality of the assessment. The Ministry requires all the branches under its administration to move rapidly to implement the Guideline. According to the Guideline, those responsible for triggering large scale group petitions or other group events will be punished.

Source: Ministry of Health, January 5, 2011
http://www.moh.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/mohbgt/s3589/201101/50484.htm

Beijing News reported that, on February 3, 2011, the first day of the Chinese New Year, around 66,000 Beijing residents visited Yonghegong Lamasery, the largest Tibetan Buddhist lamasery temple in inner China. Most of the visitors came to pray for blessings and to make wishes. In order to light the “first stick of incense,” some people started waiting in line outside the lamasery at 10 p.m. the night before, despite very cold weather in Beijing. There were 4.8% more visitors this year than last.

Source: Beijing News, February 4, 2011
http://news.bjnews.com.cn/2011/0204/107514.shtml