FRUITFUL TRADE Vendors in Fujian Province arrange fruits transported from Taiwan, which have dropped by up to 20 percent in price since direct air and sea transport between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan started in December 2008 (HANG GUOJUN)

Fraud Free

No major problems have been found during audits of the use of relief funds and material for the May 12 earthquake, China's National Audit Office announced on December 31, 2008.

The audit covered 18 Central Government departments, 1,289 provincial ones and 24,618 county-level ones. Auditors also spoke with 76,709 quake survivors in five affected provinces.

The audit was conducted from May 14 through November 30, 2008.

As of November 30, the central and local fiscal governments had injected 128.736 billion yuan ($18.9 billion) into the relief process, central and local government departments had donated 64.091 billion yuan ($9.4 billion), and Communist Party of China members had donated 9.73 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) as "special membership fees."

Drug Struggle

The Ministry of Public Security said on January 4, 2009, on its website that anti-drug organizations across China made "obvious achievements" last year in stopping drug sources and improving rehabilitation methods.

The ministry said anti-drug forces cracked about 55,000 criminal cases in the first 11 months of last year and detained 65,000 suspects based on China's anti-drug laws.

About 3.9 metric tons of heroin was confiscated and around 1,300 groups were suppressed for making or dealing drugs.

A total of 17 professional rehabilitation centers have been built across China so far, the ministry said, adding the centers now emphasize the welfare of addicts so as to prevent them from relapse after giving up drugs.

Stricter Monitoring

The public and organizations should take part in reporting any suspected adverse outcomes from medical devices, according to a new regulation of the State Food and Drug Administration of China.

People discovering events that have caused or might cause injury can report to provincial medical device monitoring centers or local drug administrations.

Manufacturers, distributors and users of medical apparatus must report deaths within five weekdays and events that might cause severe injuries or death within 15 weekdays.

China introduced a nationwide monitoring and re-evaluation system for adverse outcomes from medical devices in 2004.

Based on reports, the SFDA revoked the registration certificates for polyacrylamide hydrogel, ordered the recall of extra corporeal circulation circuits and had dialysis powder re-registered.

Banning Porn

A total of 19 websites, including search engines Google and Baidu and major portals Sina.com, Sohu.com and Netease.com appeared on a blacklist of websites that provide and spread pornographic or obscene contents on January 5.

This marks a month-long nationwide campaign launched by the Information Office of the State Council, Ministry of Public Security and other four Central Government departments to clean up the online environment.

Those websites were accused of either providing links to pornographic websites or containing pornographic pictures and of failing to take them down after being notified by China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center.