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/ 4 February 2008
Tyson Gay has heard stories that some athletes may wear face masks at the Beijing Olympics, hoping to fend off fumes in one of the world’s most polluted capitals. ”I hear a lot of people saying, ‘You’ll have to wear a mask, you’ll have to do this or that,”’ the 100m and 200m world champion said on Monday.
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/ 4 February 2008
Millions remained stranded in China on Monday ahead of the biggest holiday of the year as parts of the country suffered their coldest winter in a century. Freezing storms have killed scores of people and left travellers stranded before the Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival — the only opportunity many people have to take a holiday all year.
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/ 4 February 2008
Former Olympic and world champion sprinter Maurice Greene announced his retirement on Monday, citing nagging injuries. Greene (33) said he planned to pursue coaching and business interests in the United States and had no regrets about his athletic career.
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/ 4 February 2008
Chinese regulators have given permission for Industrial and Commercial Bank (ICBC) of China, the nation’s largest lender, to buy a 20% stake in Standard Bank, ICBC said. Shareholders of Standard Bank and South African regulators have already approved the deal.
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/ 3 February 2008
Millions of Chinese workers battled for a precious train ticket home on Sunday as authorities struggled to keep order here following a stampede for seats that left a woman trampled to death. Savage winter snows and freezing temperatures that have brought much of the nation to a standstill.
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/ 2 February 2008
Chinese state security forces have arrested one of the country’s most prominent civil rights activists in an apparent crackdown on dissent ahead of the Olympics. Hu Jia — who used blogs, webcasts and video to expose human rights abuses — is expected to face charges of inciting subversion of state power, his lawyers said on Saturday.
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/ 2 February 2008
Emergency crews struggled on Saturday to restore power to parts of southern China blacked out for a week by heavy snow as forecasters warned of no quick end to the worst winter weather in 50 years. The freak weather has killed at least 60 people and doomed millions to a cold, dark Lunar New Year holiday.
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/ 1 February 2008
Millions of Chinese faced a humanitarian crisis on Friday, as petrol and food reserves dwindled and yet more bad weather was forecast for a country paralysed by record-breaking cold and snow. More than 160 counties and cities in central China were suffering blackouts and water shortages, Xinhua news agency said.
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/ 31 January 2008
China has turned its battle against brutal winter weather into a propaganda push to try to comfort millions of cold, stranded and dismayed citizens, even as storms threaten to continue lashing many areas. Snow, sleet and ice blanketing much of central, eastern and southern China have killed dozens.
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/ 30 January 2008
On the top floor of the Yansha Friendship Shopping Centre in Beijing, Huang Kuoshan and 49 of his colleagues are waiting to be sworn in to the Beijing Workers’ Civilisation Cheerleading Squad. With the Beijing Olympic venues all but ready and the -billion upgrade of the city’s infrastructure nearing completion, it is part of a drive by city authorities to ensure bad manners do not mar the August 8 to 24 Games.
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/ 29 January 2008
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao took a bullhorn in hand to encourage stranded passengers in the snow-bound city of Changsha, as unusually severe winter weather snarled transport throughout the south amidst the country’s worst power crisis.
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/ 29 January 2008
Millions of Chinese shivered through power cuts and water shortages on Wednesday and millions more were stranded by snow that has blanketed parts of central and southern China, raising concerns about their safety. About 50 people have died, including 25 on Tuesday in a bus crash on an icy mountain road.
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/ 29 January 2008
Premier Wen Jiabao rushed on Tuesday to oversee disaster relief efforts as China’s leadership scrambled to limit the impact of the most brutal winter weather to hit the nation for half a century. The snowfalls and freezing temperatures across China have left dozens dead and paralysed infrastructure and power supplies in some areas.
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/ 23 January 2008
Dirty, polluted and congested — China’s large cities have an unenviably poor reputation. But Xiamen, located on the south-east coast two-and-a-half hours by plane from Beijing, is so different from that image that you could be forgiven for thinking you are no longer in China.
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/ 22 January 2008
Chinese police have shut down a website selling real-time porn and arrested 33 people, state media said on Wednesday, part of a campaign which led to the shut-down of 44 000 websites and arrest of 868 people last year. Rights groups have said the campaign has been used as a pretext to crack down on dissent.
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/ 22 January 2008
China’s state-backed miners have looked at Xstrata but are unlikely to bid for it, leaving Brazil’s Vale or Anglo-American best placed to snap up the Anglo-Swiss miner. Vale, which produces a fifth of the world’s iron ore, said on Monday that it was in talks with Xstrata about a takeover.
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/ 16 January 2008
German engineer Michael Bosch is not fazed by the lack of a gym and other creature comforts at his budget hotel in a converted Shanghai office building. He’s stayed at such hotels on nearly a dozen trips to Chinese cities. ”All I need is a clean, warm place to sleep. I don’t care so much about service,” the 32-year-old said as he waited for 10 minutes for a distracted receptionist to attend to him at a Motel168 on the edge of Shanghai’s financial district.
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/ 16 January 2008
When Zhi Lijiang first signed up to be an Olympic volunteer for the 2008 Beijing Games, she could hardly have imagined she would be playing the role of a Canadian tourist in English and etiquette classes. The classes are all part of Beijing’s effort to get its population to speak English to welcome the millions of foreigners expected to flood to the city in this Olympic year.
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/ 11 January 2008
More than 100 000 Chinese died in workplace accidents last year, including on the roads and railways, but the figure was down one tenth from 2006, a senior official said on Friday. Li Yizhong, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said 101 480 people died, but that government education and publicity campaigns were paying off.
Chinese opera, a massive fireworks display and a mystery ending will mark the highly anticipated opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics, media reported on Wednesday. The ceremony’s artistic director, Zhang Yimou, China’s most famous filmmaker, has dropped the first hints on the show’s content.
A pig genetically modified in China to make it glow has given birth to fluorescent piglets, proving such changes can be inherited, state media said on Wednesday. The sow was one of three pigs who had fluorescent green protein injected into their embryos when they were bred in December 2006 by scientists in north-east China.
Scientists in China have identified about 400 genes that appear to make some people more easily addicted to drugs, opening the way for more effective therapies and addiction control. Experts believe genetic factors account for up to 60% of a person’s vulnerability to drug addiction, with environmental factors accounting for the remainder.
Xing Houyuan’s advice to investors who seek her out is patient and practical: do due diligence on any potential partner, clarify its ties to the government and make sure you control any joint venture. Her words would have sounded familiar to any firm trying to enter China in the 1980s and 1990s. But the nervous-looking man who had just shown Xing his proposal was Chinese, and he was looking to do business in Africa.
China has announced new rules to control the explosion of audio-visual content on the internet, in a move seen as an effort to transfer the government’s television- and radio-censorship model to websites. Only state-controlled entities will have the right to operate websites that post audio-visual material under the new regulations.
The names of three banks and the word "stocks" beat "sex" to become four of the most Googled words in China last year, according to a Google China list seen on Thursday. China Merchants Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China Construction Bank ranked second, third and sixth, according to a list supplied by Google China on its website.
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/ 31 December 2007
The wife of a top sports anchor on Chinese state television has created a buzz in the blogosphere by crashing an Olympic media event — to publicly accuse her husband of adultery. A video clip of Zhang Bin’s wife, Hu Ziwei, commandeering a microphone at a presentation of its coverage plans was easily one of the most viewed items on a Chinese video site on Monday.
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/ 25 December 2007
Deposed Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra said Tuesday he wanted to return to Thailand in February, as he called for reconciliation with the military following weekend elections. Thaksin, who was deposed by a military coup 15 months ago, also insisted he did not want to return to politics following the polls.
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/ 24 December 2007
China has sanctioned state-owned companies to examine three possible strategies to block BHP Billiton’s proposed takeover of mining giant Rio Tinto, a report said Monday. Strategies include forming a domestic consortium to bid for Rio Tinto, a joint bid by domestic and foreign firms, or purchasing Rio shares on the open market.
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/ 19 December 2007
The hardest part is yet to come for Beijing Olympic organisers, heading into 2008 with all plans in place but potential pitfalls aplenty in the run-up to the event in August. Traffic congestion, closely linked to air quality, food security, media freedom and human rights as well as boycott calls are issues likely to flare up again over the coming months.
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/ 18 December 2007
China, widely criticised for cruelty to animals bred for consumption, is drafting new standards on animal slaughter to make the practice more humane, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. The central province of Henan has already adopted the measures, which include stunning the animals before killing them.
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/ 18 December 2007
The World Bank is planning projects in Africa with China’s Export-Import Bank to address concerns that Beijing is taking more than it gives as it scours the continent for oil and minerals. World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the pros and cons of the country’s push into Africa had been an important topic during his talks with senior officials.
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/ 13 December 2007
A restaurant fire in southern China killed has killed 10 people, state media reported on Thursday, hours after an apartment fire killed 21 in the eastern part of the country. Xinhua News Agency said the fire at a restaurant in the booming manufacturing city of Dongguan in Guangdong province also injured nine.