There might be millions of characters in the Chinese language, but English letters and even symbols are increasingly being used as names in China. In one of the strangest names, parents tried to call their son "@", while other people have used transliterated English names to make their own sound more Western, the <i>First</i> newspaper reported.
The death toll from the collapse of a bridge under construction in central China rose to 36 on Wednesday, with 23 others still missing, officials said. The 328m bridge over the Tuo River in Hunan province crumbled on Monday as workers were removing steel scaffolding erected during the building work, the State Administration of Work Safety said.
A road bridge under construction across a river in southern China collapsed, killing 22 people and injuring 22, state media reported on Tuesday, but witnesses expected the death toll to rise substantially. At least 39 people were missing after the 320m concrete arc bridge spanning the Tuo river in Fenghuang county, Hunan province, collapsed on Monday during the evening rush hour.
At least 35 people were killed after violent rainstorms triggered floods and landslides in various parts of China, state media reported on Saturday. At least 25 people were killed and 37 went missing in north-west China after continuous downpours began to hit cities and counties in Shaanxi province on Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Beijing Olympic organisers said on Thursday they were confident that athletes would compete in clean air next year despite revelations that events could be postponed because of pollution. ”We are well aware of the challenges but we are confident that air quality will be good for the Olympics,” Beijing Olympic organising committee spokesperson Sun Weide said.
Pollution intruded on celebrations to mark the one-year countdown to Beijing’s Olympics on Wednesday when Games chief Jacques Rogge said events might have to be rescheduled if air quality is not up to scratch. The International Olympic Committee president said he was happy with preparations but that some competitions might have to be moved.
China faced mounting pressure on Tuesday to honour pledges of media freedom made for the 2008 Olympics, with two Western groups accusing the government of harassing and unfairly jailing journalists. Reports by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Human Rights Watch said reporters still faced intimidation just a year before the Beijing Games.
Chinese police have arrested hundreds of people in western China after residents there called for the return of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, reports Friday. Soldiers and police were dispatched to Lithang after locals gathered on Wednesday to celebrate a traditional horse festival.
China blamed global warming on Wednesday for this year’s weather extremes, which have led to more than 700 deaths from flooding and left millions of others without water. Such extremes are likely to get worse and more common in the future, said Song Lianchun, head of the China Meteorological Administration’s department of forecasting services.
All 69 Chinese coal miners trapped underground by flood waters for more than three days emerged in broad daylight blindfolded, soaked but safe on Wednesday, state media said. The miners had been trapped in the Zhijian colliery in Shan county since Sunday morning when a flash flood surged through an old shaft.
More than 1,2-million people in the central Chinese province of Hunan are facing a ”water crisis” after four weeks of drought and high temperatures, which are also straining power-generating capacity, state media said on Tuesday. Hunan has received 25% less rain than normal and about half of its two million water-storage facilities are half-empty.
China defended its stance on Darfur on Friday and urged patience as Western critics warned that Beijing’s reluctance to back stronger action in the troubled Sudanese region could blight Olympic Games goodwill. China has pressed Sudan to accept United Nations peacekeepers alongside African Union forces struggling to quell bloodshed in Darfur.
A correspondent for China’s international radio station who has not been seen since apparently abandoning his post in Zimbabwe was officially warned on Thursday to return to work. China Radio International posted a notice in the <i>China Daily</i> newspaper saying that Cheng Qinghua "left his post without authorisation" on April 20.
Hundreds of sections of embankments along China’s third-longest river have become loose, threatening the homes of millions of people after three weeks of floods across the country. Rain has wrought havoc across large parts of China this summer, killing more than 500 people and causing billions of dollars in damage.
More than 100 people have died in floods and landslides in China where dykes protecting a swollen river in the east, which has already prompted tens of thousands to flee their homes, are in danger of being breached. Severe flooding has hit about half of China since the start of the summer, killing hundreds in what has become the deadliest rainy season in years.
China’s auditors have found more than ,2-billion in problem loans at three top banks, highlighting the ongoing poor credit practices in the financial system, the government said on Friday. The questionable loans were found at two of the nation’s largest — Bank of China and the Bank of Communications.
Chinese actress-turned-director Xu Jinglei became the world’s most widely read blogger this month when her blog logged 100-million page views within about 600 days. And Xu, who has a reputation for a high intellect and integrity, has done it without writing about sex or providing a catalogue of kiss-and-tell stories.
Thirty-seven people died in a 16-hour thunder storm in south-west China that caused heavy flooding and brought air, road and rail traffic to a halt, the government and state media said on Wednesday. Chongqing municipality received 266,6mm of rain between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon, the largest volume since records began in 1892, Xinhua news agency said.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that North Korea had shut down its nuclear reactor and four related facilities, a major step in efforts to get it to give up its nuclear-weapons programmes. The announcement came as negotiators at six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear-weapons programme sat down to a first day of talks in Beijing.
A controversial Starbucks coffee shop in the Forbidden City, the former imperial palace at the heart of Beijing, has closed its doors after years of opposition. A campaign for its closure has been brewing since early this year, when a television anchor complained about the American chain’s presence in the symbol of the Chinese nation.
Bones and skeletons have disappeared from the Chinese version of the popular online fantasy game World of Warcraft, sparking fierce criticism from the nation’s army of players, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. The skeletons, regular characters, grow flesh in the new version.
Accidents at Chinese coal mines killed nearly 1 800 people in the first half of this year, 14,3% fewer than in the same period of 2006, the Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday. But while overall deaths declined, there were more accidents where the toll numbered between 10 and 30.
People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake in China have been overrun by field mice after flood waters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported on Monday. The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China’s Dongting Lake.
China risks damaging its global credibility if it does not tackle its food and drug quality problems, an official newspaper said amid a series of health scares. China’s safety failings have drawn world attention since mislabelled chemical exports were found in cough syrup in Panama and pet food in the United States.
An illegal stash of mining explosives was probably to blame for a nightclub blast that killed at least 25 people in north-east China, media reports said on Friday. The explosion ripped through the Liaoning province club, killing at least 25 and injuring 41, including eight young girls holding a birthday party.
An explosion in a nightclub in north-east China killed 25 people and injured 33, state media reported on Thursday as investigators sought to pin down the cause. The blast hit an entertainment club in Benxi county, Liaoning province, at about 9pm (1pm GMT) on Wednesday, the China News Service reported.
A tornado swept across eastern China, killing 14 people and injuring 146, state media reported on Wednesday, the latest casualties from bad weather that has devastated parts of the country this summer. The tornado hit three villages around Tianchang in Anhui province on Tuesday, destroying more than 100 houses.
Athletes and visitors heading to Beijing for the Olympics should not be concerned by recent Chinese food scandals, as many safety measures are being put in place for the Games, city officials said. International alarm over Chinese food exports has been building for weeks amid reports of toxic produce endangering lives in the United States and other countries.
Chinese archaeologists have discovered an ancient and mysterious subterranean building near the tomb of the nation’s legendary first emperor, state media reported on Sunday. The building is hidden inside a 51m-high, pyramid-shaped earth mound on top of the tomb of emperor Qinshihuang in north-west China’s Shaanxi province.
Beijing’s long-suffering taxi-drivers are in the cross-hairs once again — with shaved heads to be banned from the driving seat ahead of next year’s Beijing Olympics, a report said on Thursday. Just two months after women taxi drivers were banned from wearing "too-fancy" hairstyles, new rules will outlaw beards and shaved heads for the men.
At least 48 people have been killed in rainstorms in southern and eastern China over the last five days, with 37 succumbing to lightning strikes, state media reported on Tuesday. Twelve people remain missing following the storms, which drenched areas, including the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the Xinhua news agency said.
Zhou Fenying is a living witness to the dark history that still poisons China’s relations with Japan more than 60 years after World War II. When Zhou was 22, Japanese soldiers came to her village in eastern China, grabbed her and her sister-in-law and carted them off to a military brothel, she says.