SUB-ZERO: Yang Weidong, President of video streaming site Tudou.com, attempts the ice bucket challenge on August 17 (CFP)

Anniversary of Victory

The Chinese Government will hold commemorative activities as the 69th anniversary of winning the War Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) approaches, the Foreign Ministry said on August 15.

"Relevant preparation is underway," said ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, in February designated September 3 as the victory day of the war and December 13 as the memorial day to commemorate the more than 300,000 Chinese killed by Japanese aggressors during the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

Japan officially surrendered on September 2, 1945, ending the eight years of resistance by the Chinese people.

China's State Archives Administration (SAA) on August 15 began releasing documents and videos showing Japan's aggression during the 1930s and 1940s. A 24-part video series, called The Great Victory, will be released on the SAA website, one episode per day.

Cult Crackdown

Chinese police have arrested nearly 1,000 suspected members of the illegal Quannengshen (Almighty God) cult, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

The suspects, all seized since June, are allegedly involved in more than 500 cases.

"Quannengshen cheats people, takes their money and violates the law under the guise of a religion. A series of acts by its members have harmed people's lives and property and disrupted social stability," the ministry said.

Five members of the cult stood trial in Yantai, east China's Shandong Province, on August 21 for the killing of a woman at a McDonald's outlet in the province's Zhaoyuan County in May, when the deceased refused to give her telephone number to them, as they allegedly tried to recruit new members for the organization.

Founded in the 1990s in central China's Henan Province, Quannengshen claims that Jesus has been resurrected as Yang Xiangbin, wife of the group's founder Zhao Weishan. The couple fled to the United States in September 2000.

HIV Reduction

A total of 436,800 people were living with HIV or AIDS in China at the end of 2013, while 136,300 had died from the disease, according to figures from health authorities.

Mortality for the disease dropped to 6.6 percent last year from 17.9 percent in 2005, Wu Zunyou, head of the HIV/AIDS Division of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on August 14.

The decline in mortality was attributed to policies such as free HIV tests nationwide and free treatment for rural and poor urban citizens, according to Wu.

Wu said that 95 percent of confirmed HIV/AIDS patients are under follow-up care.

Nearly 91 percent of the newly reported HIV/AIDS patients in China in 2013 were infected through sexual contact. About 21.4 percent of new cases resulted from same-sex intercourse, compared with 2.5 percent in 2006, Wu noted.