A new Chinese government website aimed at encouraging comrades to report corruption was brought to its knees yesterday by a stampede of eager citizens, Reuters reports.

No sooner had yfj.mos.gov.cn come online, than it was floored by sheer weight of numbers. The Beijing Youth Daily quoted an official as admitting the "number of visitors was too large".

By the time the site recovered later yesterday, it already boasted 12 pages of comments on its discussion board, some actually reporting corruption with others having a pop at the fact the initiative had been "done relatively crudely". The service responded by temporarily falling over again this morning.

China is keen to clamp down on rampant corruption, and the People's Daily reported that a meeting of the state's Politburo on Tuesday announced a new five-year plan to tackle the problem. ®

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