URUMQI Cheap New Balance 574 , Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- International passenger trains between China's Urumqi and Kazakhstan's Almaty will have a shorter route in China starting Saturday, a local railway bureau announced.

The K9795K9796 trains will cross the China-Kazakhstan border at Horgos instead of Alataw Pass, shortening the route by 301 km. The travel time for the whole trip will be cut by one third to 24 hours, according to the Urumqi railway bureau in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Located about 670 km from Urumqi and 370 km from Almaty, Horgos was once a busy passage used by traders traveling along the ancient Silk Road. The launch of the Belt and Road Initiative has injected new vitality into the ancient land port.

The railway bureau said the new route is safer than the old one as it is less likely to be affected by bad weather. The trains will also have more deluxe soft-sleeper cars. Passengers can buy last-minute tickets just an hour and a half before departure.

The Urumqi-Almaty passenger trains first started in the early 1990s. In June New Balance 574 Shoes , a new line was added, linking Urumqi with the Kazakhstan capital Astana. The routes also pass Horgos and stop in Almaty.

Large flower terrace gleams on Tian'anmen Square in Beijing

Lanzhou-Chongqing railway to open to traffic on Sept. 29

Ceremonies held around China to celebrate birthday of Confucius

Japanese PM attends ceremony marking China's upcoming National Day

Four pandas from SW China make debut in NE China's Shenyang

Modern manufacturing, transport help six Chinese provinces develop fast

A look at Kantuman Bazaar in China's Xinjiang

Scenery of terraced fields in Houyuan Village, China's Fujian

KAMPALA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The school bell New Balance 574 Sale , a rusty car wheel, is rung at a school in northern Uganda, and the school is engulfed with excitement. Pupils donned in pink or purple skirts rush from classrooms to the school compound to play. It is the mid morning break.

Denis Opoka looks at them, with tears in his eyes. He dropped out of school four years ago after he failed to raise tuition fees. Among the children is his sister Innocent Apio who is waiting to sit her final exams for the primary level this month. Opoka has come to visit her before the start of the exams.

Opoka is the head of his family. Although still a child, he protects his siblings New Balance 574 Pink , Apio and Onen-Chan Daniel, who also dropped out of school. They lost their parents in the over-two-decade rebellion in northern Uganda that left tens of thousands of people dead and 2 million others homeless.

When relative peace returned in 2006, Opoka and his siblings were among the hundreds of thousands of people that left the Internally Displaced Persons camps and returned to their villages, where there were actually nothing but bushes.

The living conditions of this family compelled World Vision, an international nongovernmental organization New Balance 574 Green , to build a two-room house for them. Opoka was also in school.

However, as years went on, Opoka had to leave school. His sponsor had since left the country and there were no other means of support. He had to leave school and look after his siblings at home.

For Opoka, 2011 was a very horrific year. It was the year he dropped out of school. He wished his parents were still alive so that they could take care of them. Now he had to bear the burdens of feeding his siblings and find money to allow them to go to school.

"I dropped out of school in 2011. I was thinking about my brother and sister who I left in the village. By then, they were still very young that they could not afford to cook for themselves New Balance 574 Burgundy ," he said.

"At times I escaped from school in the sense that I have to go and work then bring for them some food and then money for paying school fees," he said.

Opoka had to walk over 40 km from his village to Gulu town for casual employment. He had to work hard to survive in town and save some money for his siblings at home, who were in school.

"I took a decision to go to town. When I reached town, I got a friend of mine who we used to study with. I stayed with him," he said.

In his thatched house with a leaking roof in the slums of Gulu town New Balance 574 Black , Opoka pondered on life's challenges. "I can even sleep without eating. People used to laugh at us that since I dropped out of school, I cannot raise money to help my young brother and sister," he said.

After a day's hard work of collecting firewood, washing plates and clothes for a few shillings, he would take a break in his virtually empty mud and wattle house. As six o'clock in the evening strikes New Balance 574 Classic , he had to go for training.

Opoka is trying to be a marathon runner to see if sports can open up opportunities for him. He participated in the national competition held in Kampala, the capital of the country, over 340 km south of Gulu.

Back in Opoka's village, his brother Onen-Chan is wiping grains of sweat off his face as he ferries building materials. He is a temporary worker at a road construction company. Onen-Chan also dropped out of school as Opoka failed to raise tuition fees for him. For Onen-Chan, his dream is to become an engineer. He hopes that one day he could go to a technical school and acquire the basic skills.

"I joined this road construction company to get some money to go back to school and also for feeding New Balance 574 ," Onen-Chan said. "I want to become a mechanic. I will go to technical (vocational school) because here you get skills fast and face the world."

Apio, the youngest in the family, aspires to become a teacher, just like Opoka.

"I want to become a teacher because a teacher can get everything they want," she said. "I need somebody to help me, my brother does not have money to support me. He works but the money he gets is too little."

Sometimes Opoka gets so burdened that he wants to give up. "I want to come back to the village because life .