Call for 13 million Chinese to get hukou recognition

BEIJING • Chinese state-run media called yesterday for children born outside the nation's one-child policy to be given crucial household registration documents, an issue that has left as many as 13 million in legal limbo.

Hukou registration is essential in China to obtain basic social services such as schooling and healthcare. Parents who violate the policy, which limited most to having a single offspring but is to be replaced with a two-child rule for all, can register extra children only after paying a hefty fee.

Many working families cannot afford the cost, with the government-published China Daily saying in an editorial that such children should be allowed to access the social services.

"These children are innocent of any wrongdoing and they should be granted the legal status that would enable them to access social resources," the editorial said.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

1MDB probe: Panel hopes to present report

KUALA LUMPUR •The newly constituted Public Accounts Committee (PAC) expects to present its report on troubled state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) at the next Dewan Rakyat session

in March. "We hope that the report regarding 1MDB will be presented to Parliament latest by March 2016," PAC chief Hasan Arifin told Malaysian Insider.

The committee, led by MP Hasan Arifin, questioned the sovereign wealth fund's former chief executive Shahrol Halmi yesterday. He will be questioned again on Monday, and its current president and CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy will be called in on Tuesday, reported Malaysiakini.

1MDB's struggles to reconcile a RM42 billion (S$14 billion) debt pile has caused outrage. PAC proceedings were disrupted earlier this year by a change in the panel members due to a Cabinet reshuffle, leading to allegations that Putrajaya was attempting to delay the probe into the firm.