Briefly

China starts renovating urban communities

China started the renovation of 51,300 old urban residential communities in the first three quarters of this year amid its efforts to improve people's living conditions, official data showed. The renovation projects benefit 8.51 million households nationwide, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. China plans to commence renovating 53,000 old urban residential communities this year to benefit 8.65 million households. The ministry said renovation projects put into construction between January and September accounted for 97 percent of the annual target. As of the end of September, 21 provincial-level regions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hunan, Guizhou and Xinjiang have started all their community renovation projects as planned.

More Yangtze River finless porpoises seen

The population of finless porpoises in the Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River is stable and increasing, according to a survey conducted by the environmental monitoring center in the province. Between Nov 7 and 14, staff with the center spotted and monitored finless porpoises 86 times in the Jiangsu section. During the survey, the staff also collected environmental DNA from water samples for analysis, so as to have a better understanding of the activities of the Yangtze finless porpoise population in the Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze finless porpoise, which is under top-level State protection in China, is an important indicator of the health of the Yangtze River ecology. This species can only be found in the middle and lower main streams of the Yangtze River.

Xinhua