Society

17 people were killed and 24 others injured in a southern Beijing suburb Monday morning in the deadliest fire the Chinese capital has seen in nine years.

Nine men and eight women died in the fire, and most of them were migrant workers seeking accommodation in the building, said Wang Xin, deputy chief of the Daxing District Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Out of the 17 dead, thirteen were workers hired by an unlicensed garment workshop called Yuyun and the other four were tenants in the four-story building. And 11 of the dead lived on the ground floor, said Wang.

A Green Paper on the Rural Economy estimates a 9 percent rise in prices for agricultural produce this year, Beijing Times reported Wednesday.

Grain prices will rise 10 percent, according to the Green Paper jointly issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

China's first emergency evacuation helicopter goes into service at a private hospital in Changyuan county, Central China's Henan province, April 20, 2011.

The plane can carry five people and travel up to 700 kilometers in a single flight. It aims to facilitate prompt medical aid for patients who live in remote areas and to invite more experts from other provinces to help with diagnosis.

The shooter is confirmed to be a policeman (surname Lu) from a police station of Laibing Guangxi. Lu and his colleague Wong dispute with restaurant waitress on price, Lu shot at 2 waitresses Li and Qin on 18th April 2011. Li and Qin was send to hospital immediately, none of them are life threatening.

China policeman Lu and his colleague Wong are in custody.