Didi halts hitch service

Didi Chuxing, the nation’s largest online car-hailing platform, will halt its hitch* services across the country starting Monday after a female rider was raped and killed by a Didi driver in Zhejiang.

Effective from midnight on Monday, it will suspend its Didi Hitch nationwide and re-evaluate its business model and service logic, it said in a statement on Sunday. The announcement came a day after the company admitted it bore “responsibility” for the crime, failing to act on a complaint about the same driver from another passenger, who claimed he drove her to an isolated area and followed her in his vehicle after she left the car.

Hotel owner detained

Police in Harbin, capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, detained the owner of a hotel where a fire killed 19 people and injured 23 others on early Saturday.

The owner, surnamed Zhang, of Beilong Hot Spring Leisure Hotel in the city’s Songbei District is now being questioned, according to local police. The deadly fire started at 4:36 a.m. on Saturday at the hotel in Songbei District.

After-school institutions

The government will complete the rectification* of issues at all after-school education institutions by the end of this year, addressing areas including giving lessons above the normal level, exam-oriented training and increasing student pressure, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Thursday.

“The country has examined 382,000 after-school education institutions across the country as of August 20, among which 45,000 have been rectified,” said Lv Yugang, an official with MOE.

Salmon labeling

Ten days after China’s fish association introduced new standards that allow rainbow trout* to be labeled as salmon, the Shanghai Consumer Council held an open debate last week during which industry leaders and businesses were urged to respect consumers’ right to know “about the products they consume.”

Lawyers and aquaculture academics joined the two-hour debate.

(SD-Agencies)