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/ 13 December 2007
United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came away from two days of talks on Thursday convinced that China sees the need for a stronger yuan. Although the grand-sounding ”strategic economic dialogue” apparently produced slim pickings, Paulson said it provided a sound foundation on which to expand cooperation.
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/ 8 December 2007
The father of China’s latest bird-flu victim also has the disease, officials said on Friday, prompting World Health Organisation fears of possible human-to-human transmission. A Health Ministry statement said a 52-year-old man named Lu in the eastern city of Nanjing had the H5N1 strain, which killed his son on Sunday.
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/ 7 December 2007
The death toll from China’s latest major coal mine disaster rose to 105 on Friday, official media said, as hope for survivors ebbed and anger mounted over a litany of mistakes that compounded the tragedy. Twenty-six more bodies were recovered on Friday morning following a gas explosion at the mine in northern China’s Shanxi province.
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/ 6 December 2007
Ninety-six miners were feared dead after a coal-mine gas blast in northern China on Thursday, a grim toll likely caused by illegal mining and possibly made worse by delays reporting the accident, the Xinhua news agency said. Rescuers had found 70 bodies in the village-run mine by early evening and were searching for at least 26 more.
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/ 6 December 2007
At least 40 people were killed and 74 others trapped underground after an explosion at a coal mine in northern China on Thursday, with a group of rescuers among the missing, officials said. The gas blast occurred just after midnight at a mine in Linfen city, a coal-rich area in Shanxi province, the state administration of mine safety said.
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/ 5 December 2007
More than 100 000 people lined the streets around Bangkok’s glittering Grand Palace on Wednesday to cheer Thailand’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej as he celebrated his 80th birthday. The crowds, dressed in yellow shirts and waving flags emblazoned with a royal emblem, lined the broad tree-fringed avenues leading to the palace.
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/ 5 December 2007
The Chinese military has added mobile showers to its ever more sophisticated arsenal, state media reported on Wednesday. The camouflaged vehicle can be set up in five minutes and allows 20 men to shower simultaneously within a narrow 10-square-metre space, the Xinhua news agency said.
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/ 4 December 2007
Food prices may climb for years because of expansion of farming for fuel, climate changes, and demand from richer consumers in fast-growing developing nations, a report said on Tuesday. Biofuel expansions alone could push maize prices up over two-thirds by 2020 and increase oilseed costs by nearly half.
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/ 27 November 2007
Several times this year, Tan Mingzhu had the terrible feeling her home in central China was about to collapse in on her family. Frightening tremors rocked their simple concrete dwelling 4km from China’s mammoth Three Gorges Dam, ripping floor-to-ceiling cracks in the walls, and she doesn’t hesitate in assigning blame.
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/ 26 November 2007
Chinese leaders hailed images sent back from from the country’s first lunar satellite on Monday, saying they showed their nation had thrust itself into the front ranks of global technological powers. Premier Wen Jiabao, visiting the scientists who have guided the probe Chang’e 1 into space and around the moon, proclaimed the mission a complete success.
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/ 25 November 2007
Bravehearts Scotland won their first World Cup title in dramatic style on Sunday, beating tournament front-runners the United States at the third play-off hole. Eight-time European number one Colin Montgomerie and young gun Marc Warren went one better than last year when they lost a spirit-crushing play-off to Germany.
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/ 24 November 2007
South Africans Trevor Immelman and Retief Goosen are hoping their experience as former winners of the World Cup will give them an edge in the final round of this year’s tournament at Mission Hills. In Saturday’s fourball or better-ball format, the duo combined for a six-under-par 66.
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/ 24 November 2007
The bodies of 31 victims of a landslide in central China are so badly crushed that DNA samples may be needed to identify them, state media reported on Saturday. A long-distance bus was buried under an avalanche of boulders, earth and mud at the entrance to a railway tunnel being built in Hubei province near China’s massive Three Gorges Dam.
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/ 23 November 2007
Americans Boo Weekley and Heath Slocum hit a solid three-under-par 69 to retain a one-shot lead over their more fancied rivals after the second-round foursomes at the Golf World Cup on Friday. England topped the leaderboard by two shots midway through the round, but they found the alternate-ball format more taxing and a late bogey dragged them down.
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/ 22 November 2007
Global warming is one of the most significant threats facing humankind, researchers warned, as they unveiled a study showing how climate changes in the past led to famine, wars and population declines. The world’s growing population may be unable to adequately adapt to ecological changes brought about by the expected rise in global temperatures.
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/ 21 November 2007
China has committed to sending an engineering unit of peacekeepers to Darfur at the end of the week, the top United Nations peacekeeping official said on Wednesday. China has about 1 800 peacekeepers deployed abroad, making it the second-largest contributor after France.
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/ 20 November 2007
One of the most popular tourist destinations in China is waging a week-long campaign to hunt down wild pigs that have been frightening visitors to its famed West Lake, state media said on Tuesday. Professional hunting teams from the West Lake district of Hangzhou, the capital of the coastal province of Zhejiang, were under orders to shoot to kill the animals.
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/ 20 November 2007
Armed with backpacks, sleeping bags, budget travel guides and hunger for a wider world long beyond their reach, backpackers from China are likely to be heading to a youth hostel near you. Loosened travel restrictions and a booming economy mean that growing numbers of young Chinese have visas and cash to travel abroad as never before.
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/ 18 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer put on a vintage display to beat Spain’s David Ferrer 6-2 6-3 6-2 in securing his fourth Masters Cup title at the season-ending event on Sunday. Federer’s victory at the showcase eight-man tournament put him level with Ilie Nastase and one behind the record of five titles held by Ivan Lendl and Pete Sampras.
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/ 18 November 2007
Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez won the UBS Hong Kong Open in a thrilling finish Sunday, firing a final round of 67 to push Sweden’s Robert Karlsson into a share of second place. Jimenez emerged victorious after Karlsson made a disastrous double bogey on the final hole which saw him finally surrender the lead in the ,25-million tournament.
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/ 17 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer scored his best-ever win over arch-rival Rafael Nadal to reach his fifth Masters Cup final on Saturday. The defending champion edged a tight first set and destroyed the fading Spaniard in the second, winning 6-4, 6-1 in just 59 minutes.
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/ 15 November 2007
The death toll from a building site accident in eastern China when an elevator plunged more than 20 storeys has reached 11 after five of the injured died in hospital, state media said on Thursday. The accident happened at a nearly completed block of flats in Wuxi City in Jiangsu province.
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/ 12 November 2007
Top-ranked Roger Federer lost consecutive matches for the first time in four-and-a-half years, falling to number seven Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 4-6, 7-6 (1), 7-5 on Monday at the Masters Cup. It was the defending champion’s first loss in 11 meetings against Gonzalez.
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/ 12 November 2007
China’s muzzled press and burgeoning internet have given citizen reporters an audience and an opportunity to spread news quicker than censors can control it. But the ability of bloggers to dodge censors and provide a voice for China’s poor and disadvantaged by covering news events Beijing would rather be left unreported.
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/ 10 November 2007
World number one Roger Federer will aim to put an unusually patchy tennis season behind him with victory number four at the elite Masters Cup starting on Sunday. The defending champion, smarting from two rare defeats in the past month, signalled his determination by arriving nearly a week early for the year-ending showpiece.
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/ 9 November 2007
Rafael Nadal hit the practice court with 48 hours to go before his start at the year-end Masters Cup in Shanghai, determined to fulfil the goal of ending this season on a high note. Nadal, losing finalist last weekend in the Paris final to David Nalbandian, said he wants to put a winning stamp on this season.
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/ 5 November 2007
China’s maiden lunar probe successfully entered the moon’s orbit on Monday, officials said, a critical step in its year-long mission to photograph and map the surface of the celestial body. Chang’e I blasted off on October 24, signalling China’s rising space ambitions and Beijing’s participation in a renewed race to explore the moon.
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/ 5 November 2007
He has locked horns with Gotham City’s darkest criminals, including the Joker, the Riddler, Catwoman and Penguin. But now Batman has crumbled in the face of an even deadlier foe: the polluted water of Hong Kong. <i>The Dark Knight</i>, is filming in Hong Kong in and around Victoria Harbour.
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/ 31 October 2007
Beijing Olympics organisers apologised on Wednesday after suspending ticket sales following a booking system meltdown, their first major blunder in preparations for next year’s Games. About 1,8-million event tickets were supposed to go on sale on Tuesday on a first-come-first-served basis for people living in China.
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/ 31 October 2007
A Chinese mountaineering official will have the unenviable task of trying to prevent robberies on the roof of the world after a spate of equipment thefts, officials said on Wednesday. The official will be deployed at a breathtaking altitude of 6 600m after a record season this year saw 520 people reaching Mount Everest’s 8 848m summit but also complaints of stealing.
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/ 24 October 2007
Asia’s space race heated up on Wednesday as China launched its first lunar orbiter, an event hailed in the world’s most populous nation as a milestone event in its global rise. China’s year-long expedition kicks off a programme that aims to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s surface by 2012 and put a man on the moon by about 2020.
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/ 23 October 2007
It is remote, virtually surrounded by desert, and its only claim to fame is as a fleeting player in the founding of Communist China — but Ulanhot wants its slice of the multibillion-dollar ”red tourism” pie. Trouble is, for all the lovingly restored old buildings and spic new exhibitions, the masses just aren’t yet coming to this far-flung Inner Mongolian settlement, whose name literally means ”red city” in Mongolian due to its Communist connections.