Beijing, Dec. 31 : China is expected to start work on four nuclear power stations in 2009, according to a senior government official.

The four power stations are in Haiyang, Rongcheng in eastern Shandong province, Sanmen in eastern Zhejiang province, and Yaogu in southern Guangdong province, Zhang Guobao, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in an article published in People''s Daily Tuesday.

Beijing  - A court in northern China's Hebei province on Wednesday tried the former head of a dairy producer at the heart of a scandal over tainted milk powder linked to the death of six infants.

The court tried Tian Wenhua, the former general manager of Sanlu, and three other senior executives on charges of "producing and selling fake or substandard commodities," state media said.

Beijing - China's dairy producers have set up a fund to compensate victims of melamine-tainted milk powder, which apparently led to the death of at least six infants and may have sickened tens of thousands of others, state media said on Sunday.

The China Dairy Industry Association said it set up the fund from 22 dairy producers implicated in the scandal, who "hope to earn understanding and forgiveness of the families of the sickened children" through the move, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

All victims will get a one-time cash payment, the association said without specifying the amount or other details of the compensation.

Beijing  - Officials in central China have suspended the use of lifts, cranes and similar equipment on construction sites pending safety checks, after 17 people died when an overloaded lift plummeted to the ground on Saturday, state media said on Sunday.

The Hunan provincial construction bureau ordered the suspension after a lift carrying 18 workers, but reportedly designed for a maximum of 12, plunged from at least 17 stories the semi-official China News Service said.

Seventeen workers died and the other was seriously injured at the construction site for a high-rise residential complex in the provincial capital of Changsha, reports said.

Beijing  - The death toll has risen to 17 after a gas leak from a blast furnace at a steel plant in northern China's Hebei province, the government said on Thursday.

A total of 44 people were working near the furnace at the time of the gas leak on Wednesday in the city of Zunhua, 150 kilometres east of Beijing, the State Administration of Work Safety said.

Two steel workers died instantly, five more died shortly afterwards, and another 10 died when emergency hospital treatment failed to save them, the administration reported on its website.

Hospitals were still treating the other 27 workers, who were all in stable condition after suffering carbon monoxide poisoning at the Ganglu steel plant, it said.