Society

China has a new policy: If Beijing doesn't like the text messages you send in the country, your cellphone will be disabled, preventing you from sending or receiving messages.

According to the government newspaper China Daily, Beijing has banned "illegal or unhealthy" content in SMS messages, but it hasn't defined exactly what that entails.

Is it part of Beijing's recent anti-pornography push? Would sending a racy message to your husband or wife shut down your phone? (If so, that could have saved Tiger Woods and former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick a lot of trouble.)

It remains a mystery. "The standard for determining whether a message is unhealthy or not is based on 13 criteria handed down by nine central government departments," reports China Daily. "No details of the criteria were given."

Since the public is encouraged to report violators, what is to stop someone malicious from falsely accusing rivals of an offense? That could leave people's phone connections in the hands of business competitors, rowdy neighbors or jealous exes.

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.