The trial of 21 people charged in relation to a fire that last year engulfed the CCTV headquarters, began on Tuesday at Beijing's No.2 Intermediate People's Court.
Allegations of children dying or becoming ill due to receiving poor quality vaccines in addition to accusations of corruption outlined in a newspaper report have snowballed to become the latest in a series of national scandals involving children's health.
As the case against four Rio Tinto employees got under way in Shanghai earlier this morning, one of the defendant's lawyers indicated that the four accused were likely to plead guilty.
Main items on the agenda include the consideration and discussion of work reports from the central government, the standing committee of the NPC and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
In a rare online chat with China's increasingly vocal web users on Saturday afternoon, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated that the coming year would be one of the most "complicated" years ever for the country.
According to an official communique released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week, the price of housing in seventy of China's large- and medium-sized cities increased by an average of 1.5% over the course of last year.
The introduction of China's first stock index futures exchange moved a step closer yesterday when Chinese investors began lodging applications to set up trading accounts on the new board.
China's local and central governments recorded a total budget deficit of 739.7 billion yuan in 2009, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Finance on February 5.
