FUN TIME: National Outdoor Sports Camp for Juveniles kicks off in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, on February 11 (ZHANG CHUNXIANG)

Yutu's Return

China's moon rover Yutu has awoken up from its concerningly abnormal dormant period, while experts are still trying to figure out the cause of the abnormality, a spokesman with the country's lunar probe program revealed on February 13.

The abnormality was discovered just before Yutu entered its second period of inactivity as the lunar night closed in on January 25. Due to extreme temperatures, Yutu must lie dormant during lunar nights or otherwise risk damage to its systems.

Pei Zhaoyu, the spokesperson, said that the moon rover's normal signal-receiving function had been restored to normal, but the causes of the mechanical control fault are still being verified.

"Yutu went into sleep while reporting an abnormal status," Pei said, adding that experts were initially concerned that it might not be able to survive the extremely low temperatures during the lunar night as a result.

"The rover stands a chance of being saved now that it is still alive," he said.

Nutrition Guarantee

On February 10, China's Central Government issued a guideline for the development of the nation's food industry, vowing to establish systems to improve people's nutritional intake.

The guideline said that, although China's food production capacity has been expanded and people's diets and health has improved, current supplies cannot meet the nutritional demand for everyone.

The government vowed to establish mechanisms to monitor people's diets, strengthen supervision and information analysis, and intervene in areas or among groups where people are suffering from bad nutrition.

Rural Schooling

The Chinese Government has spent nearly 40 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) on renovating rural schoolhouses in less-developed regions over the past three years, according to figures released on February 10.

Students' living conditions have improved since 2010, when ministries of education and finance launched a program of renovating primary and junior schools in rural areas, according to the ministries.

Nearly 69,000 schoolhouse renovation projects started from 2010 to 2013, of which more than 51,000 have been completed.

The dormitory area for each primary and junior school pupil reached 3.1 and 4.2 square meters respectively, which made for increases of 24 percent and 40 percent compared to 2009.

Nearly 700 counties in impoverished areas built school canteens, facilitating the government's efforts to improve students' nutrition, according to the ministries.

Water Management

The Ministry of Water Resources said on February 6 that it has established a new performance appraisal system to evaluate local governments on their management of water resources.

Chen Mingzhong, Director of the Department of Water Resources under the ministry, said that China is committed to more efforts to ensure effective implementation of its water resources management system, which was put into place in 2012 and is the strictest-ever standard on water conservation and waste water treatment in the country.

Major indicators on limiting the exploitation of water resources, improving efficiency of its use, and curbing pollution of water sources will be incorporated into the assessment system for local governments' work, Chen added.

According to Chen, local government heads will be held accountable for failing to perform their responsibilities.

China faces a national water shortage of over 50 billion cubic meters on average every year, the ministry's figures showed. Two thirds of its cities reportedly don't have enough water and nearly 300 million rural residents lack access to safe drinking water.