Society

A quarter of divorce cases in Chongwen district involves couples aged 30 or under, a court report stated.

It also noted that this group has been doubling annually over the past five years, showing a changing public attitude toward marriage.

These statistics come from a report of 360 divorce cases handled at Chongwen district in 2009. It said more than half the divorces were marriages that hadn't lasted three years.

The report, which was made public on the municipal court's website, noted that around 97 percent of divorcees had grown up without siblings.

Baidu Chief Technology Officer, Li Yinan will leave the company on Feb. 20 to become CEO of a China Mobile subsidiary, confirmed by an insider Monday. Li resigned a month ago.

The Baidu board of directors have not commented on his resignation.

Li will become CEO of Beijing Wuxian Xunqi, an operator under China Mobile.

Beijing Wuxian Xunqi is the sole cooperator of China Mobile 12580, a service hotline, which is the first comprehensive information service operator offering services, such as WAP, SMS and GPS.

Li has a Master's degree in optical engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. He first served as chief telecommunications scientist and vice president at Huawei Technologies, Later, he joined Baidu in Oct., 2008 and served as CTO for over a year so far.

He led the research and development of many programmes, including the next generation search engine called A La Ding.

Chen Xueyang is a senior in high school, but unlike her counterparts in public schools, her life doesn't involve endless examinations and homework late into the night.

The 18-year-old, who studies at Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA) in the Wangjing area, is among the burgeoning number of Chinese students at international schools across the city.

"What I like the most about the international school is that there are only about 20 students in a class compared to 60 in a local school," said Chen, who before spent a year at Beijing Ritan Middle School, a top public school. "I learn better in a smaller class."

"I can approach teachers and ask question whenever I need to. In contrast, when I was at Ritan I didn't get many chances to talk with teachers."

Chen, who aims to pursue her higher education in the United States next year, has now sent application letters to 10 universities.

China reported 65,000 kilometers of highways designed for fast traffic by the end of 2009, second only to the United States, said Li Shenglin, Minister of Communications, on Friday.

China opened 4,719 kilometers of expressways in 2009 and launched construction of 16,000 kilometers of expressways last year as a result of increased investment in infrastructure, Li said at a national work meeting in Beijing.

According to the strategic plan for highway development in 2005, by 2020, China will establish a national highway network, totaling 100,000 kilometers, about the length in the United States today.

The network could be achieved ahead of time based on the current development speed, Li said.

China has maintained its second place in the world in terms of expressway lengths since 2001.