This is Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news.More than 18 million children were born in Chinese hospitals last year, an increase of 11 percent from 2015. More than 45 percent of the newborns were not the first child of the family.Last year, China saw the largest number of newborns since 2000, following the abolition of the decades-long one-child policy.Moreover, the health authority reports that the maternal and infant mortality rates also dropped last year.China has pledged to improve maternal and child care services by increasing the number of obstetricians, midwives and hospital beds.This is Special English.China will host a United Nations meeting on fighting desertification in September.An estimated 1,400 delegates from around 200 parties to a United Nations special convention on desertification will participate in the event. They will gather in Ordos in north China&`&s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for the meeting.The participants will discuss their national goals and action plans to achieve zero net land degradation by 2030. China&`&s desertified areas were greatly reduced in the period between 2009 and 2014.According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, 12 million hectares of land are lost to desertification every year across the globe. And the figure could rise due to population growth, climatic reasons and unsustainable farming practices. You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.More than 100 golf courses have been banned in China, as part of its efforts to clamp down on illegal use of land and water resources.Of the total 680 golf courses across China, 110 have been closed since a national project was launched in 2011.Among their illicit behavior, these golf courses were found to have illegally used large amounts of arable land or nature reserve areas, or extracted groundwater in prohibited areas. Eighteen of the golf courses have been required to return their illegally occupied land, and another 47 have been ordered to stop business activities or construction. The central government has ordered the rectification of the remaining 500 golf courses, of which a dozen have closed voluntarily. China imposed a ban on the construction of new golf courses in 2004, when there were fewer than 200 in the country. However, the number continued to rise as the sport gained popularity, especially among business people and government officials. Golf courses are seen in all provincial-level regions except Tibet.This is Special English.Moving some colleges out of central Beijing, either to the suburbs or other cities, is necessary to ease overcrowding; but experts say any new locations will have to first meet the needs of the employees. Beijing&`&s rich education resources have long attracted large numbers of people from across China, leading to chronic congestion and putting a strain on public services. To alleviate the problem, the city government released a five-year plan last year for education development. The plan aims in part to keep higher-education institutes small in size. It also aims to remove some university facilities from central areas. Experts say it is imperative that some colleges and universities leave the city, but they expect it to be a long term process.You&`&re listening to Special English. I&`&m Mark Griffiths in Beijing.Seven hundred million Chinese people, or around half of the country&`&s total population, had used mobile phones to access the Internet as of the end of last year.The number of people who used their mobile phones to surf online continued to increase by an annual 10 percent during the past three years. Last year, almost 500 million people used mobile phones to make payments, an increase of 30 percent from a year earlier.China has more than 700 million internet users, accounting for 53 percent of the total population. The