CLEANING UP CONTAMINATION: Workers try to clean leftover sewage leaking from a copper mine in Shanghang County, Fujian Province on July 13. The mine is owned by Zijin Mining Group, China's largest gold producer. The leakage on July 3 caused a massive fish kill after entering a local river (JIANG KEHONG)

Crop Failure

China's summer grain output in 2010 fell for the first time in seven years, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on July 12.

Summer grain output fell to 123.1 million tons this year, down 0.3 percent from a year ago, the NBS said on its website.

The drop in output was due mainly to the drought in China's southwestern regions earlier this year, with output in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces down 1.69 million tons.

Despite a slight expansion in the area of land under cultivation, up 0.1 percent, the yield per hectare dropped 0.4 percent year on year to 4,489.3 kg per hectare.

Agriculture Minister Han Changfu warned in June that the severe drought in the southwest of the country and extreme cold in the north of the country earlier this year have undermined the country's summer grain harvest.

Essential Iodine

China's health authorities renewed their commitment to providing the country with iodized salt on July 13.

Chen Rui, an official with China's Ministry of Health, said at a press conference that the benefits of iodized salt still outweighed the concerns of excessive iodine, citing the results of nationwide risk assessment of iodine intake led by the ministry.

The assessment was carried out in response to claims from the media and medical experts that some regions, coastal areas in particular, reported cases of excessive iodine intake last year.

Since 1996, iodine has been added to salt across the country because in most parts of the country, the average diet is iodine deficient.

Accelerated Aging

The Chinese population in their 80s or older approached 19 million at the end of last year and will grow by an additional 1 million annually, says a report released on July 13 by the Office of the China National Committee on Aging.

The aged population, referring to people aged 60 years and above, increased by 7.25 million to 167.14 million last year, or 12.5 percent of the total population of China.

Further, last year's growth rate of the proportion of aged people in the population, half a percentage point, was the largest annual increase in history, said Wu Yushao, deputy director of the office.

Corruption Cases

China's prosecutors have recovered a total of 31.26 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) through investigation and prosecution of corruption and bribery cases since 2005, said the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP).

Procurator departments nationwide placed 146,570 corruption and bribery cases involving more than 170,000 people on file, said figures released at a national conference to fight corruption and work-related crimes on July 14.

Among those investigated, 13,192 officials were at or above the county level. Further, 8,776 cases involved funds of more than 1 million yuan ($147,000), according to the SPP.

The prosecution offices apprehended 6,148 fugitives in connection with corruption and bribery cases during this period, including 71 who were then living abroad.

"Embezzlement and bribery cases are carried out in more complicated, covert and smarter ways" and they usually "involve a greater sum of money covering more fields," said the SPP's anti-corruption bureau.