China's net cafe crackdown totals 3,300?
Xinhua says a total of 3300 internet cafes have been permanently shut down by the Chinese government since the fire in June, with an additional 12000 temporarily suspended. There’s no saying how accurate the figure is. A report in July put the number at 3100 for the first four weeks of raids, and it seems unlikely that it only increased by 200 in the following 5 months.
Li Rongrong, minister in charge of China’s State Economic and Trade Commission, was quoted as saying officials had inspected about 45,000 Internet cafes in the past six months. Operations of nearly 12,000 of them had been suspended pending improvements and more than 3,300 were permanently closed, it said.[...]
Minister Li said the ministry was working to reduce work-related accidents. From January to October this year, the number of people killed in accidental fires was 5.3 percent lower than in the same period of 2001, Xinhua said.
The death toll at county- or township-owned coal mines and from road and shipping accidents also dropped considerably, it said, without elaborating. – Reuters, China Shuts Some 3,300 Internet Cafes After Fire.