A military transport plane carrying 40 people crashed in eastern China’s Anhui province on Saturday, the government said on Sunday. A local official said at least five people were killed. Villagers described a chaotic crash scene, with bodies and body parts strewn across a mountain slope where the plane crashed and burned.
Shares of the Bank of China rose more than 14% by midday on Thursday during their debut on Hong Kong’s stock market, with indications of strong demand from investors around the globe eager to tap into the country’s galloping economy. The bank raised ,7-billion in an initial public offering — the world’s biggest in six years — that valued the shares at HK,95 each.
China’s will next month increase down-payments on home loans and broaden the capital gains tax, moves analysts said on Tuesday should help cool the overheated real estate sector in the short term. The down-payment on homes above 90 square metres would be raised to 30% from 20%, as authorities target the high-end of the property market.
The powerful earthquake that hit Indonesia was just the latest display of violent seismic activity on the archipelago, which stretches across one of the most unstable parts of the Earth’s surface. The country’s position on the planet’s crust means it will continue to experience such catastrophes, just as it has done for the past 50-million years or so.
A severe earthquake estimated to measure 6,7 on the Richter scale on Monday struck in the north-eastern Pacific coastal area of Russia, the Hong Kong observatory said. The quake struck at 7.21pm Hong Kong time and its epicentre was located some 870km east of the Siberian city of Magadan, the observatory said.
Electricity shortages were slowing attempts to clear a flooded mine shaft on Monday, and community members began to lose hope for 57 miners trapped for a fourth day in China’s worst mining accident this year. ”We must go all out to rescue these men. But we also need to start preparing for the worst,” said the mayor of the nearby city Datong.
China on Thursday denied as ”groundless” allegations that it was trying to steal military and scientific intelligence from the United States. ”The so-called accusation that China is stealing US military and scientific intelligence is groundless,” foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao said.
The death toll climbed to eight after Typhoon Chanchu hit southern China’s Guangdong province early on Thursday, while more than 900 000 people were evacuated, an official and state media said. The typhoon killed 41 people and left thousands homeless when it tore through the Philippines last week.
China’s Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River, the world’s largest hydropower project, shows the nation at its most powerful, but also makes it vulnerable in entirely new ways. For the past nearly two decades, during design and construction of the dam, planners have engaged in a low-key effort to make sure it is protected from hostile forces.
About 620 000 people were evacuated from southern China on Wednesday as Typhoon Chanchu, the strongest storm to date to hit the region at this time of year, churned towards the coastal province of Guangdong. The province also ordered more than 58 000 fishing boats and other vessels to return to their home ports.
With the click of a switch, brightly polished restaurant tables lift almost magically into the ceiling and from sliding panels in the floor ice buckets emerge in time for the waiter who arrives with the champagne. As the drinks are served the back wall lifts slowly to reveal a huge aquarium dominated by a hammerhead shark.
Children’s yoghurt drinks bought by health-conscious parents in Hong Kong contain unhealthily high levels of sugar, a news report said on Tuesday. A survey by the city’s consumer council found that sugar was added to many of the popular yoghurts and drinks to make them more appealing to sweet-toothed customers.
Global auditing firm Ernst and Young has withdrawn a report saying China’s non-performing loans totalled over -billion, apologising for what it called an ”erroneous” publication. ”We apologise that this erroneous report was issued. We sincerely regret any misleading views that the report conveyed,” the firm said.
Spanish whiz Dani Pedrosa became the second-youngest winner in the history of motor cycling’s premier class with victory in the Shanghai Grand Prix on Sunday. Pedrosa (20) started in pole and pushed his Honda through the 22 laps of the 5,28km Shanghai International Circuit in 44 minutes 07,734 seconds.
China on Thursday blasted the Libyan government for holding talks with Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and letting him visit the country. "Regardless of China’s persuasion and strong opposition, Libya insisted on allowing Chen Shui-bian to stop over," said Chinese foreign-ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao.
China’s biggest internet search engine has launched an online encyclopedia modelled on the US-based website Wikipedia, which is blocked by Beijing. Entries on Baidupedia, the new service from Nasdaq-listed <i>Baidu.com</i> launched last month, are however censored by the Chinese government.
Governments in Asia are considered among the world’s worst ”enemies” of internet freedom, as they increasingly censor websites and jail people who express views deemed dangerous online. Ahead of World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, experts say countries including China, Vietnam and Nepal are feeling more threatened by cyberspace than ever as internet use booms.
At least 24 miners have died in an explosion at a coal mine in north-western China, the government said on Sunday. Thirty-nine miners were working underground when the gas blast occurred at the Wayaobao Coal Mine in Shaanxi province, China’s State Administration of Coal-Mine Safety said on its website.
China’s first face transplant recipient, a hunter who was badly mauled by a bear, is recovering faster than expected and has even managed to smile, state media said on Wednesday. The Xijing Hospital in the northwestern city of Xi’an said the physical and mental state of Li Guoxing (30) was "pretty good".
China has agreed to supply Iran with 50 passenger trains over the next two years in a deal worth nearly $60-million, state press said on Monday. China’s state-run Changchun Track Passenger Train Company will supply the double-decker trains as well as provide spare parts, tools and technical services.
India’s Jeev Mikkha Singh claimed his maiden European Tour victory in Beijing on Sunday, winning the ,8-million China Open by one shot over Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano. The 34-year-old Indian carded a two-under par 70 around the Nick Faldo-designed course at Beijing’s Honghua International Golf Club, to finish at 10 under par for the tournament.
Li Shuanlin remembers the sweltering hot August day nine years ago when his mine shaft collapsed and, with it, life as he knew it. A coal miner since the age of 24, he was fully aware of the dangers of his profession, but always thought it would happen to someone else.
Chinese police have concluded 121 skulls found in a ravine with their tops missing were byproducts of a local handicraft industry using human bone as a vital ingredient, state media reported on Thursday. A farmer surnamed Qiao, a resident of the northwestern province of Qinghai, had hacked the skulls from the bodies of unmarked graves and sold them to two artists in neighbouring Gansu province.
Google agreed to comply with Chinese government censorship rules to fulfil its ”mission to serve all the people in the world”, Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said on Wednesday. ”The number one goal, by far, is to serve the Chinese citizen who wants information,” Schmidt told reporters at the launch of Google’s new Chinese name.
The subversion trial of Chinese dissident Li Jianping opened on Wednesday in eastern China’s Shandong province, with the writer accused of posting pro-democracy articles on the internet. Li (40) a businessman and writer, was arrested in May last year after posting essays advocating greater democracy on the internet.
Chinese writer Li Jianping will go on trial for subversion on Wednesday for posting political essays on the internet, a rights group said. An intermediate court in Shandong province will hear Li’s case after charges against him were upgraded from "suspicion of defamation" to "inciting subversion of the state," the China Rights Defenders said in a statement.
A powerful explosion at a hospital complex in northern China’s Shanxi province early on Monday killed at least 17 people with up to a dozen more missing, state media and local police reported. The explosion occurred in a garage at the hospital and damaged buildings within one square kilometre "to various degrees", Xinhua news agency and police said, without giving a reason for the blast.
Beijing plans to make full use of its authoritarian powers during the Olympics in 2008 by banning more than two million cars to ensure that one of the world’s most polluted cities will have clear skies for at least the two weeks of the games. Billions of dollars are being spent on Olympic venues, new roads and the world’s biggest airport terminal.
The Rolling Stones will finally play in China this weekend after a three-decade battle to win censorship approval, but there are few frenzied fans here awaiting the arrival of the British legends. The veteran bad boys of rock — the biggest music act ever to play in China — have chosen to play their one-off concert on Saturday at a tiny 8 000-seat theatre in Shanghai .
Ryk Neethling of South Africa won the opening gold medal of the World Short-Course Swimming Championships here on Wednesday. Neethling, who led from the outset, held off a late challenge from European champion Filippo Magnini to take the 200m freestyle in 1:43,51 sec.
Police have confirmed that 121 skulls with mysterious saw marks that were found in a ravine in north-west China belonged to humans, state press reported on Wednesday. The skulls were found in plastic bags, along with fur and other bones, in a forested riverbank on Monday last week in Gansu province’s Tianzhu Tibetan autonomous county.
A 24-year-old man tried to sell his soul on China’s most popular auction website and managed to get 58 bids before operators pulled his ad, he told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday. "It was just an impulse," the seller, who requested anonymity, said from Shanghai. The man posted the announcement on Taobao last week, asking a starting price of 10 yuan ($1,23).