Society

Two years ago, on Aug 1, shiny bullet trains began to rocket like streaks of lightning between Beijing and Tianjin.

The train, with a maximum speed of 350 kilometers per hour, reduced the traveling time between the megacities - from 75 minutes to merely half a hour.

Now, every day around 50,000 passengers travel on the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway.

While many are occasional passengers, there are many who, like red blood cells in an artery, regularly ride the train between the two economic and cultural hubs of northern China.

Zhang Zhimai, 68, is a native of Beijing but he has lived and worked in Tianjin for decades. As a senior engineer with the Tianjin Research Institute of Construction Machinery, he is a regular passenger on the bullet train and makes business trips between Beijing and Tianjin at least once a week.

Expo city Shanghai will realize zero growth in population by 2015, the first region to reach that goal in China, followed by Beijing and Tianjin in 2018, according to the Report on Scientific Development of China 2010 released by the Chinese Academy of Science, china.com.cn reported Thursday.

The study considered both natural science and human elements, pointing the way for China's "green development," namely to realize national zero growth in population by 2030, to realize zero growth in resources and energy consumption by 2040 and zero growth in ecological degradation by 2050, the report said.

Beijing's maximum temperature will continue to linger around 35 degrees Celsius for two more days, the Beijing Meteorological Station said Wednesday in its fifth consecutive yellow alert warning for high temperatures.

The city is expected to shake off the heat by a much-anticipated rain on Saturday, which will bring the maximum temperature down to around 31 degrees, Xinhua News Agency reported, citing an unnamed meteorological expert.

The maximum temperature in Beijing rose to 35.5 degrees at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, the 10th day above 35 degrees after the city was hit by a heat wave on July 23. The relative humidity has also been above 50 percent for days, a reading that can easily cause heat strokes in the hot summer.

Meteorological expert Zhang Mingying said high humidity and temperature would continue for the next two days, and this kind of hot weather with higher humidity than usual has a bigger impact on people because it makes it difficult for people to cool down by perspiring.

China will help Venezuela build three 300 megawatt (mW) electricity generating plants in return for oil deliveries under a long-term $20 billion financing deal, the Latin American OPEC nation said on Thursday.

Three months ago, Beijing said the China Development Bank had signed a "framework financing agreement" worth about $20 billion with Caracas, half to be paid in dollars and half in yuan, but gave few other details.

The Venezuelan government said 19 development projects had been agreed during bilateral talks in its capital on Thursday, including constructing the three power stations.