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You are listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Liu Yan in Beijing.
The number of people taking public transportation has reached a record high for the year as Beijing imposed traffic restrictions in advance of Thursday's military parade, prompting an increase in subway train capacity and safety measures.
On Aug 20, the first day the odd-and-even license plate rule was imposed, more than 24 million people traveled on public transportation, a record high for this year. More than 11 million used rail transit, a 10 percent increase from the previous Thursday.
The number of cars on the city's roads was expected to drop by 35 percent to 50 percent from Aug 20 to Sept 3 during two events, the World Championships in Athletics and the parade marking the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
The rule posed more challenges for traffic in Beijing this time than previously, including during the APEC Summit last November. To ensure subway safety during high-capacity periods, the number of staff members has been increased at major stations, and train and line monitoring were intensified.
Now the news continues.
A new survey has found that the waistlines of Beijing's children and teens are expanding at alarming high rates.
Obesity among students at the capital's primary and middle schools hit 15 percent last year, up 2 percent from a year earlier.
The survey indicates that more than 60 percent of the chubby kids suffered from increased blood glucose and one third had raised blood pressure.
Public health authorities in Beijing said bad eating habits and inadequate physical activities were blamed for the super-sizing of children and adolescents in Beijing.
According to another survey tracking the health of 37,000 college and high school students in the city, around 40 percent of them did not get enough exercise, or spent more than two hours in front of the computer each day.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
A glass platform atop a cliff, the largest of its kind in Asia, is nearing completion in Chongqing municipality in southwest China.
The hanging platform stands 280 meters above Karst Valley in Wulong National Geological Park. Measuring 26 meters long and 11 meters wide, the glass platform was designed to provide tourists with a breath-taking panoramic view of the landscape under their feet.
The park has three naturally-formed stone bridges, the largest such complex in Asia, as well as other Karst landforms including sinkholes and caves.
Each single pane of the platform is able to bear a maximum weight of 10 tonnes.
The platform is due to open to the public before the upcoming week-long National Day holiday.
