PICTURES OF YOU: Two girls show off their printed portraits at the Inside Out art exhibition held in Shanghai on May 12. Visitors could go into a van equipped with cameras to take a picture of themselves and display it in public (YUAN JING)

Graft Clampdown

Prosecutors in China have investigated 10,840 people suspected of involvement in bribery, corruption and embezzlement between January and March of this year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) revealed at a press conference on May 15.

A total of 6,759 people were investigated for embezzling more than 100,000 yuan ($16,050) or taking bribes worth more than 50,000 yuan ($8,025), accounting for 82.2 percent of all cases.

Some 661 people involved in corruption cases were officials at county-level or above, accounting for 6.1 percent of all cases, according to the SPP.

Xu Jinhui, Director of the SPP's Anti-Corruption Bureau, said that the number of corruption cases in the first quarter of this year had risen 24 percent compared with last year and the number of suspects involved in these cases had risen 19.8 percent.

Xu added that the number of cases involving officials at county-level or above had seen a 46.9-percent rise in the same period. The number of cases in which bribes exceeded 50,000 yuan or embezzlement reached 100,000 yuan had seen a rise of 26.9 percent.

The Communist Party of China launched a nationwide campaign, which is still ongoing, to crack down on corruption at the end of 2012.

Employment Incentives

Preferential policies will be granted to encourage college graduates to work at the community level or start businesses in a move to boost employment, the State Council, China's cabinet, announced on May 13.

Graduates that decide to work for the government at a community level will be provided with tuition compensation or a reduction in their student loan, the State Council said in a statement.

Small-sum guaranteed loans or subsidies will be given to new graduates to open online shops, it said. Small and micro-sized technology businesses will benefit from similar policies once they recruit a certain amount of college graduates.

Figures from the Ministry of Education show 7.27 million university students will enter the job market this year, mostly in June and July. The number is 280,000 more than last year.

Nuclear Safety

China is working to form a 300-member state-level rescue team specialized in nuclear emergencies, a senior official revealed on May 12.

This team will respond to "serious nuclear accidents in complicated circumstances," said Yao Bin, head of the Nuclear Emergency and Security Division under the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND).

They will be tasked with supporting the operators of nuclear facilities to handle contingencies, such as cordoning off radioactive sources during and after nuclear accidents, rescuing trapped people, as well as controlling the spread of contamination and minimizing the damage, said Yao, also deputy head of a national nuclear emergency response office.

The fast-response team will be equipped with the latest devices, and the country will also build a training base for the team.

The SASTIND and the General Staff Headquarters of the People's Liberation Army are working together on the program, which is set to be finished by 2015, according to Yao.

Yao also said that China will hold a national-level nuclear security exercise next year.

Code-named Shield 2015, the exercise will simulate a nuclear material handling process and will be conducted in south China's Guangdong Province due to its long history in civilian nuclear power use, according to a preliminary plan.

It will be the second national-level nuclear security exercise since Shield 2009, which was held in November 2009 at Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant in east China's Jiangsu Province.