Off the wire
• Benin to organize major anti-polio awareness campaign  • Nigerian think-tanks hail development of Tibet, China  • 600 kg of bronze Roman coins uncovered in Spanish town  • Weather forecast for major Chinese cities, regions -- April 28  • Weather forecast for world cities -- April 28  • Five killed, over 13,000 left homeless by floods in eastern Tanzania  • U.S. "freedom of navigation" operations in South China Sea "very dangerous": China  • Xi urges intensified efforts to advance rural reform  • Results of Serbian general elections withheld  • 1st LD: Provincial prosecutor gunned down, son injured in W. Afghanistan  
You are here: 　 Home

Top legislature ratifies int'l treaty to cut mercury

Xinhua, April 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

China's top legislature on Thursday ratified an international treaty on reducing mercury emissions, which are harmful to humans and the environment.

The National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee approved the Minamata Convention on Mercury at a bi-monthly session, which concluded the same day.

The legally binding global treaty was signed by the then chief engineer of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Wan Bentai, on behalf of China, on Oct. 10, 2013, in Kumamoto, Japan.

The treaty takes its name from the Japanese city of Minamata, where methylmercury from the city's industrial wastewater killed hundreds and left many more disabled in the 1950s.

As of Nov. 2, 2015, 128 countries and regional organizations had signed the convention and 18 of them, including the United States, had ratified it. Endi