A big data platform was launched Wednesday to help a special group of Chinese children, known as left-behind children.

China has around 9 million rural children whose parents work away from home, leaving them behind with grandparents, relatives or caregivers.

The platform will include a database covering these children’s personal information, guardianship, psychological and physical conditions, and then match their needs with resources donated by social organizations, companies and individuals.

Service centers will be set up to offer various courses, training and aid, according to a statement issued at the launch ceremony.

Children taking part in the project will receive watches that record their location to prevent them from becoming lost.

The project was jointly launched by the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund and a technology firm related to the country’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province Wednesday reported a new human infection of the H7N9 bird flu virus, bringing the number of infections to six in the province.

The 62-year-old female from Inner Mongolia showed symptoms including a fever and cough after having contact with dead poultry and was confirmed as infected in the city of Yulin Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, the local government in the city’s Yuyang District reported more than 20,000 chickens had died from an outbreak of H7N9 bird flu at a private poultry company.

H7N9 is a bird flu strain first reported to have infected humans in China in March 2013.

According to the National Health and Family Planning Commission, in March, 96 H7N9 infections and 47 deaths were reported nationwide. In April, 81 infections and 24 deaths were reported.

Chang Xiaobing, former chairman of China Telecom, was sentenced to six years in prison for graft Wednesday.

The sentence was handed down by the Intermediate People’s Court of Baoding city in northern China’s Hebei Province.

The court also fined Chang 500,000 yuan (around US$72,850) and ordered his illicit gains to be confiscated.

Chang confessed to his crimes in court.

It found Chang guilty of taking advantage of his positions as a telecom official and chairman of China Unicom to seek benefits for various institutions between 1998 and 2014.

In return, he accepted money and valuables worth more than 3.76 million yuan.

China Unicom and China Telecom are two of China’s top three telecom service providers.

The court decided to be lenient as Chang pleaded guilty, expressed remorse, returned his illegal gains and offered information on other crimes.

A network of remote sensing satellite ground stations that cover all of China’s territory and 70 percent of Asia passed its final acceptance examination on Wednesday.

The network is headquartered in Beijing and features three ground stations in a suburb in Beijing, Kashgar in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Sanya in Hainan Province, respectively.

It will be used to support various remote-sensing systems, especially for the western part of the country and the South China Sea, according to the examination committee.

The project began in 2007.

The Central Military Commission (CMC) will terminate all paid services provided by the military by the end of June 2018, according to a military professor.

In the first stage, services in 10 fields should stop by the end of this June, said Jiang Luming, professor at the National University of Defense Technology in an interview with Xinhua.

The 10 fields are nursery education, press and publications, culture and sports, communications, personnel training, barrack projects, storage and transportation, militia armament repair, repair technology and driver instruction, he said.

Projects in another five fields — real estate rentals, agricultural products, accommodation services, medical care and scientific research — should be ceased by the end of June 2018, he added.

In February 2016, the CMC issued a circular urging the end of all paid services by the armed forces and the armed police.

Jiang said that the military has received support from local governments and courts.