Drill at Sea

Sailors stand on Chinas missile destroyer Haikou at a naval port in Sanya， south Chinas Hainan Province， on June 9. Chinese naval vessels， including Haikou， the missile frigate Yueyang， the supplier ship Qiandaohu and the hospital ship Ark Peace， set sail from Sanya and Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province to the United States on June 9 to participate in the Rim of the Pacific （RIMPAC） multinational naval exercises.

It is the first time that the Chinese navy has participated in joint maritime exercises organized by the U.S. navy.

Massacre Heritage

China is applying to the UN Educational， Scientific and Cultural Organization（UNESCO） to list 11 sets of documents related to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in the Memory of the World Register， said Zhu Chengshan， curator of a memorial hall for victims of the mass murder， on June 11.

On December 13， 1937， the invading Japanese army occupied Nanjing， capital of China， and launched a sixweek massacre. Chinese records show more than 300，000 people， including disarmed soldiers and civilians， were murdered.

According to Zhu， who initiated the application， the documents， which include diaries， films， photographs and testimonies， depict the brutality of Japanese invaders in the massacre.

On June 10， Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying confirmed that China had applied to UNESCO to list documents relating to the Nanjing Massacre and Japans wartime sex slaves， also known as “comfort women，” on the Memory of the World Register.

Created in 1997 by UNESCO， the register protects heritage documents.

Historians estimate that 200，000 women were forced into sexual servitude by Japanese forces during World War II， most of them from countries invaded by Japan at that time.

Care for Seniors

More land has to be made available for the building of homes for the elderly in China， according to a recently unveiled regulation.

The new requirement was issued on June 9 by the ministries of civil affairs， land and resources， finance， and housing and urban-rural development， to address the lack of nursing institutions for elderly people across the country.

New residential districts are required to be equipped with homebased or community service institutions while built-up housing estates should introduce such facilities within a year， according to the regulation.

Land for such facilities cannot be used for other purposes， the regulation says， adding that inspections will be conducted to tighten supervision.