News In Brief

China says Peking crime rate cut sharply in crackdown

Peking's crime rate has fallen dramatically since the authorities launched a crackdown last August, the New China News Agency reported Tuesday. It said reported crimes in the first half of 1984 were down 51 percent compared with the same period last year.

Last year crime rose in Japan to its highest level since the early postwar years, especially among young people, an official report said yesterday. The National Police Agency report blamed industrialization and urbanization, which it said upset old neighborhood patterns and broke down local watchfulness against crime.