Society

China's state news agency said Monday that 11 people died and at least 120 were sickened after consuming vinegar that had been put in barrels once used to store toxic anti-freeze.

The Xinhua news agency said residents of Sangzhu village in China's northwest Xinjiang region consumed the vinegar during a large Ramadan feast on Saturday, following a day of fasting. All the victims were ethnic Muslims. Xinhua said children as young as six were among the dead.

China started building 7.218 million units of low-income housing in the first seven months of this year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said Friday.

Construction of such houses accelerated significantly in July, the ministry said in a statement on its website. The statistics did not include the number in Tibet Autonomous Region, it added.

The government vowed to start construction of 10 million units of low-income housing this year, part of the five-year plan to build 36 million units by 2015.

The government hopes such affordable houses can stabilize the country's runaway property prices.

China Mobile will invest 13 billion yuan ($2.02 billion) in Shanghai for building broadband networks, which coordinate GSM, TD-SCDMA, TD-LTE and WLAN technologies, within three years, Sohu reported.

By the end of 2013, its WLAN access points will exceed 90,000 and international bandwidth will reach 300G.

Chongqing is the safest and most stable city in China, according to a league table cited in the Chongqing Evening News Wednesday.

This annual evaluation, by the Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Public Security, reflects the overall level of social order, stability and safe construction and is based on more than 70 indexes including mass sense of safety, dispute resolution and mediation, comprehensive management of grass-roots infrastructure and social management.

Chongqing scored 93.48 points in 2010 evaluation, taking the top spot for the first time, up from 13th place in the 2009.