The arrival of an international summit in Beijing - the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum - has led to some unusual restrictions on the city's 21 million inhabitants - and one decent bonus.

Apec is deemed the capital's biggest event since the 2008 Olympics, with delegates set to include Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, and dozens of news-stands and food kiosks have been removed from the streets in the tidy-up, while people who fly pigeons and kites near Beijing Capital International Airport face being detained as part of rules to ensure flight safety.

However, many workers will be able to put their feet up - factories have been ordered to cut back or suspend production, and government employees have been given a six-day holiday, with authorities so eager to ease congestion they are taking the unusual measure of deploying cargo trains to carry the cars of holidaymakers out of the capital.