Chinese police caught 19,345 telecom fraud suspects in 2016, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) on Wednesday.

The SPP increased efforts to crack down on telecom and Internet fraud and supervised the handling of 62 major telecom and Internet fraud cases last year.

The cases included one that allegedly triggered the death of Xu Yuyu, a high school graduate in Shandong Province, who died of cardiac arrest after losing her tuition money to telecom fraud, the SPP said.

In May 2016, the SPP issued a circular urging procuratorates at all levels to tighten crackdowns on telecom and Internet fraud.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) destroyed a transnational telecom fraud gang in Cambodia, catching 39 suspects and paying compensation of more than 360,000 yuan (52,173 U.S. dollars)to 21 victims.

The SPP and the MPS have issued a joint guideline on such cases explaining punishment and case management for telecom and Internet fraud crimes.

More than 50 percent of people are optimistic about their incomes increasing in 2017, with rural people expressing more confidence than their urban counterparts, according to a recent survey report.

About 55 percent respondents in rural areas believe that their annual income will rise in 2017, compared to 53.4 percent people in urban areas, according to the report released by the China Central Television, which surveyed 570,000 people.

China has implemented favorable policies to help reduce the rural-urban income gap. In 2016, China lifted 12.4 million people out of poverty.

The report said people in ten provincial-level regions were most confident of increased annual income: Qinghai, Tibet, Hainan, Jilin, Ningxia, Anhui, Shandong, Shaanxi, Guizhou and Chongqing, all regions where a large number of poverty alleviation projects are located.

People with annual family revenues below 10,000 yuan (1,449 U.S. dollars) tended to focus on relocating projects, vocational education and small loans as a way of escaping poverty.

The survey hopes its results will provide valuable reference for national policies.

The report said that happiness did not arise from high income. People with family income exceeding 1 million yuan did not feel happier than those with income between 80,000 to 120,000.

In first-tier cities, education and entertainment were the top choices for people to spend money, according to the report.

The report also showed that people who have a partner feel happier than those who are single. People with partners but who were yet to marry were happiest.

Nearly 80 percent of young people interviewed said that they liked to live in good quality rented apartments with stable rental periods.

Tourism, digital products, and household appliances were the top three expected purchases in 2017, with tourism the top choice for the last three years, the report said.

Nearly 220,000 people have registered themselves as organ donors in China, and the number is expected to increase rapidly with the help of internet technologies, according to the China Organ Donation Administrative Center.

The number of people who have registered to become volunteers for organ donation in China reached 219,365 on Monday, up from 66,000 on March 20, Hou Fengzhong, deputy director of the center, said on Tuesday.

On Monday, guided by Chen Jingyu, a leading lung transplant surgeon from Jiangsu province and a deputy to the National People’s Congress, Shen Jinjin, a public health expert and an NPC deputy from Jiangsu, registered online to become an organ donor, with the whole process taking less than a minute.

Shen said that, as a doctor, his “biggest wish is to see more donors, so patients waiting for organ transplants don’t die while they are waiting due to a lack of organs”.

The number of organ donation volunteers has increased rapidly in the past few years due to the use of internet technologies, according to the China Organ Transplantation Development Foundation.

The foundation cooperated with Alipay, the online payment platform of Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba, meaning that since Dec 22, real-name users of Alipay have been able to register to become organ donors on the payment platform in just 10 seconds, said Zhao Hongtao, deputy secretary-general of the foundation.

In two and a half days, more than 86,200 people registered to become donors, which is equivalent to the total number of registrations for the previous two years, Zhao said.

Registering to become a donor volunteer does not mean people are obliged to donate their organs after death, and they can cancel their registration any time at their will, the foundation said.

Huang Jiefu, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee and chairman of the China National Organ Donation and Transplantation Committee, said the concept of organ donation should be promoted using internet technologies.

“Such methods can help promote the idea of organ donation among the public, particularly the younger generation, who are major internet users,” Huang said.

NPC Deputy Mai Kangsen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering [Photo/China.org.cn]

NPC Deputy Mai Kangsen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, has suggested extending the annual fishing ban among other measures to protect ocean resources.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing.

“Ocean resources are exhaustible. We have to recognize that, in order to protect ocean resources and make fishing sustainable, we have to have higher catch limits,” he said.

He proposed further extending the fishing ban, slapping strict controls on the size of fish caught, and setting fishing quotas.

Based on scientific estimates, Mai said the annual catch from the shallow ocean should be set in a range between 3-6 million tonnes. However, China’s current catch is more than 10 million tonnes every year, profoundly damaging the ocean ecosystem.

The fishing ban that China implements has been extended from three to four months and was extended to the Huaihe River last year. This year, the Pearl River and Minjiang River are included for the first time.

The ban is enforced beginning June 1 every year and aimed at safeguarding fish during their breeding season and conserving fish stocks.

“Despite the extension of the fishing ban, there is still a great strain on ocean resources,” said Mai. “We should come up with stricter policies to restore resources.”

Although there will be added management costs, protecting ocean resources was a far more important consideration.

Shenzhen Customs have smashed a diesel oil smuggling operation, seizing more than 10,000 liters of illegal diesel.

Ten suspects, including some from Hong Kong, were detained in the operation, according to customs.

Officials said they received a tip off that there was an illegal diesel oil trade business being run out of a dilapidated parking lot in Shenzhen’s Bao’an district and another two places nearby.

After careful investigation and preparation, customs carried out raids at 10 am Tuesday at the three sites.

According to an anti-smuggling official from customs, who declined to be named because of his work, one of the suspects who was responsible for transmitting information at the gate of the parking lot ran out, trying to escape, but was eventually caught.

“The illegal activity not only causes unfairness to oil enterprises, but also disrupts market order of the industry. More importantly, it could cause safety and environmental protection problems to the city and its citizens,”the official said.

The suspects include Hong Kong truck drivers, illegal diesel oil dealers and sellers, and others involved in the smuggling chain.

The drivers filled up the trucks with diesel oil in Hong Kong, drove them across the border to the sites where they unloaded the diesel oil and sold them to dealers at a high price.

The dealers would then resell the smuggled oil to construction sites, gas stations and vehicle owners with at an even higher price.

One of the Hong Kong truck drivers who was detained in the operation said he brought diesel oil in Hong Kong at 3 yuan ($0.43) a liter and sold it on the mainland for 3.6 yuan a liter.

By doing this, he could make over 1000 yuan a day, he said.