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/ 4 September 2006
So, Professor, spill the beans — was Brad Pitt suspicious when you flew off for a week with Angelina Jolie? How often does Madonna call you? And is it true that you did psychotropic drugs with Bono? These and other tempting questions run through my mind as I wait for Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, to fill his bowl of muesli at a Beijing hotel buffet, writes Jonathan Watts.
Police are ordering that Beijing’s galleries remove political art from their walls, writes Jonathan Watts.
It is going to come as a shock to tens of millions of lungs, but the Chinese government is planning a tobacco-free Olympics when the world’s heaviest smoking nation hosts the event in 2008. Long used to breathing some of the most polluted air in the world, Beijingers will get some respite during the games as a result of measures revealed recently.
It is an anniversary that China wants to forget. It’s been 40 years since the start of the Cultural Revolution, one of the most insane episodes of the 20th century when children turned on parents, pupils tyrannised teachers and hundreds of thousands died in the name of class war.
Western supermarket chains are surging into the fast-growing Chinese market. This week, Wal-Mart — the world’s biggest retailer — declared its intention to lead the charge, announcing that it will hire up to 150 000 new staff in China over the next five years. The plan is the most ambitious attempt yet to convert China to Western consumer culture — albeit with a local flavour.
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/ 28 February 2006
Against a background of rising rural unrest, China recently unveiled ambitious plans to help the 800-million people living in the countryside catch up economically with people in the cities. More rural investment, agricultural subsidies and improved social services are the main planks of a policy to create a ”new socialist countryside”.
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/ 27 February 2006
More than four-fifths of the wetlands along northern China’s biggest river system have dried up because of over-development, the state media reported recently in the latest warning of the dire environmental consequences of the country’s economic growth.
"Soccer runs in our family’s veins," says proud dad Ozzie Liebestein. And sometimes outside his family’s veins, too, by the looks of things: five minutes into the interview the nasty gash to his forehead is still oozing. Most fathers might have had a few sharp words to say to their sons had they too been felled by a roundhouse kick to the mandible, but Ozzie will hear none of it.
South African football bosses have unanimously committed themselves to keeping unwelcome attitudes and influences out of the local game. "Victrocentrism" — the disturbing desire to win matches — has been identified as a major threat to local football.
The International Space Station (ISS) is missing and nobody is terribly sure where it has gone. In an extraordinary press conference at Cape Canaveral this week, Nasa admitted that the last communication from the two astronauts on board was more than 48 hours ago and was said to be: “Hey, what’s going on? You guys didn’t say you were sending a shuttle.”