Countryside Management and Rural Skills Students from the Oatridge Campus of Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) got their hands dirty by enjoying a day volunteering with Scottish National Heritage (SNH).

Countryside Management and Rural Skills Students from the Oatridge Campus of Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) got their hands dirty by enjoying a day volunteering with Scottish National Heritage (SNH).

An amendment to the physical examination standards for military academies has loosened the body weight requirements for candidates, military authorities said.

The amended standards allow a male candidate weighing up to 30 percent more than the standard body weight for his height to pass the examination. For female candidates the maximum is 20 percent over the standard.

Standard weight for candidates, in kilograms, is the difference between his or her height in centimeters and 110, according to the standards.

The original standards released in 2006 stated that male candidates more than 25 percent heavier than the standard weight for their height, and female candidates exceeding the standard by over 15 percent, shall not pass the physical examination.

The amendment made other changes to the military academy physical examination, including permitting candidates to have larger tattoos and canceling several examination items such as checks for carsickness, seasickness and chronic sinusitis.

Authorities started work on the amendment in 2014, hoping to make the standards better match the physical and mental conditions of young people, which have changed due to social and economic development and improved living standards, according to the military authority.

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A navigation lock in operation in Xiangjiang River in Changsha, Hunan province. [Photo/Xinhua]

China will dredge sections of the Yangtze River this year to deepen it and increase the amount of freight traffic that can use the waterway, a national legislator said recently.

“Projects will be carried out on the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River,” said Tang Guanjun, deputy to the National People’s Congress and also director of the Changhang River Administration of Navigational Affairs in Hubei province.

“We aim at forming a water network connecting more places,” he said.

“The water level is of prime importance to freight transportation on the river. For every 10 centimeter rise in the water level, a 3,000 metric ton ship can carry an extra 176 tons of cargo,” he said.

“The ‘golden water gateway’ is essential to boosting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The river’s mainstream is the busiest river in the world regarding freight traffic,” Tang said.

In 2016, freight traffic on the mainstream of the Yangtze River was 2.31 billion metric tons, while railways across the country carried 3.33 billion tons. The river handled 15.2 million containers last year.

“Water transportation is much cheaper than rail and road transportation,” he said.

New projects will be carried out under strict environmental rules, Tang said.

“We will build a green navigation channel, including using environmental materials and technology to avoid water pollution, and use an ecological design to allow fish to migrate and plants to grow,” he said.

The projects will be carried out on the mainstream and its tributaries.

After the project is completed, the river will be navigable for bigger ships, allowing them to be able to load and unload cargo along the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

Bottlenecks affect freight transportation traveling to the middle and upper reaches of the river.

The increase of freight traffic along the river is an important part of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, one of China’s three major national strategies.

The economic belt covers 11 provinces and cities, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Sichuan and Shanghai, with a total area of 2.05 million square kilometers. The belt also spans the country’s eastern, middle and western regions, and its population and GDP account for more than 40 percent of the national totals.