YAK MUSEUM: Yak heads are displayed at the world's first yak-themed museum in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, which opened to the public on November 15 (CHOGO)

Expectant Births

The number of couples applying to give birth to a second child since the only-child policy was relaxed reached nearly 800,000 at the end of September, said a family planning official on November 18.

The number falls within expectations, said Song Shuli, a spokeswoman for the National Health and Family Planning Commission, at a press conference.

The new policy, which has been in effect since March in most localities, allowed couples to have a second offspring if at least one parent is an only child.

The relaxation came as the world's second largest economy strives to address the issues of labor force and an aging population.

The one-child policy had limited most couples to only one child in order to control population growth.

Champion Computer

Tianhe-2, the super computer developed by China's National University of Defense Technology, has retained the top spot as the world's fastest supercomputer for the fourth year running, according to a biannual Top 500 list of supercomputers released on November 17.

The updated list came on the heels of an announcement on November 14 by the U.S. Department of Energy that it will spend $325 million building two supercomputers, which will be three to five times faster than Tianhe-2.

However, Jack Dongarra, a professor at the University of Tennessee and the compiler and editor of the list, said that before the U.S. systems are put into operation in 2018, there will be no machine that will possibly dethrone the Chinese supercomputer.

Tianhe-2, which means Milky Way-2 in Chinese, can operate at 33.86 PFLOPS, the equivalent of 33,860 quadrillion floating point calculations per second.

The National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province, where Tianhe-2 is installed, is reportedly making an update to increase the system's speed to more than 100 PFLOPS.

Lake Protection

Central authorities have vowed to avoid the previous "treatment-after-pollution" approach in an action plan to protect China's lakes from pollution.

The document, published on November 18, mapped out measures to be taken between 2013 and 2020 to protect 365 lakes across the country that have relatively good water quality.

The protection will be carried out in five major areas including northeast China, east China, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Inner Mongolia-Xinjiang regions.

Lakes that are major drinking water sources or possess important ecological functions will be a priority.

A report released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection earlier this year revealed 17 out of China's 31 major freshwater lakes are suffering from pollution at "slight" or "moderate" levels. Pollution in the Dianchi Lake in southwest China's Yunnan Province was rated as "severe."

Transient Dwellers

China's migrant population reached 245 million at the end of 2013, composing more than one sixth of the nation's total population, a government report said on November 18.

The trend of people moving into big cities has not changed, and the average age of the migrant population is rising, according to the report released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

At the end of 2012, the migrant population, those who have left their birthplaces to live and work elsewhere, amounted to 236 million. Many of the group are former farmers who go to cities to open small businesses or provide cheap labor in hopes of higher pay and a better life.

Over 62 percent of the migrant couples' children aged 6 to 15 have moved along with their parents, the report said.