COLOSSAL TANKS:The picture shows oil storage tanks at Daqing, China's largest oil field. The field's reserve capacity will increase by 1 million tons to 3 million tons when eight new oil storage tanks are completed at the end of 2010 (YU JIANWEI)

Google Condemned

The China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) "strongly condemned" search engine Google's Chinese portal on June 18 for providing what the agency said were links to pornography and lewd information that violated national regulations.

Google China told People's Daily on June 23 that the company is willing to use all necessary measures to tune its search engines as the government requires and will publicize its progress when the time is right.

The CIIRC said in a statement that Google's Chinese portal was still providing links to many obscene pictures, videos and articles, despite government warnings in January and April.

Google China "does not filter porn content from its search results according to China's related laws and regulations," the CIIRC said. Such content harms the bodies and minds of minors and goes against public morality, the agency said.

National Service Employment

Chinese officials said that starting this year, the country would for the first time begin to pre-recruit university graduates into military service in an effort to ease the increasingly tough employment situation amid the economic slowdown.

Military pre-recruitment among university students would start in May or June every year, according to a policy paper jointly issued by the Conscription Office of the Ministry of Defense and the Student Department of the Ministry of Education. Pre-recruited graduates could receive subsidies to cover their school costs or repay school loans.

This year, only male graduates will be eligible for pre-recruitment into the armed forces—the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police Corps.

Curbing Birth Defects

China will soon launch a new health program to provide free folic acid supplements for 12 million rural women of childbearing age, the Ministry of Health announced June 18. Sufficient folic acid levels in mothers help prevent birth defects in newborns.

The program will cost the Central Government 160 million yuan ($23.5 million) in 2009.

China, particularly the rural areas, has high numbers of various birth deformities, which afflict about 1.2 million of newborns each year, according to the National Maternal and Child Health Surveillance Office.

Island Law

China's top legislature on June 22 began to discuss a draft law intended to step up conservation and environmental protection of offshore islands.

The draft, submitted to the Ninth Session of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress for its first reading, proposes that national and local governments make comprehensive plans to guide the protection and development of inhabited and uninhabited islands.

The plans are expected to provide details on establishing oceanic nature reserves and special protection zones on and around islands, as well as guidelines for using uninhabited islands.