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).
The World Short-Course Swimming Championships suffered the loss of yet another top athlete as Australia and the United States dominated the opening heats on Wednesday. Double world champion Roland Schoeman, the top draw here in the absence of swimming greats Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett, was a late withdrawal citing a lack of fitness, organisers said.
The United Nations’ top official on bird flu urged China on Tuesday to share its experience with other countries on how to tackle the disease. Speaking at the end of his third visit to China as UN coordinator for avian influenza, David Nabarro said he had tried to persuade Chinese officials that the knowledge and experience they gained fighting bird flu could help the rest of the world.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama may be allowed to visit China if he ”completely abandons” independence ambitions, the nation’s religious affairs chief said in comments published on Monday. ”As long as the Dalai Lama makes clear that he has completely abandoned Tibetan ‘independence’, it is not impossible for us to consider his visit.”
A man has won 600 yuan () compensation from a clothes store for emotional distress after the shop sold him a T-shirt that said in English, ”This Bitch Bites”, a media report said on Friday. The unidentified man, who did not speak English, took action after his girlfriend told him why people laughed at him in the street, the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily reported.
Hong Kong will ban the sale of live poultry in markets within three years in a move aimed at averting an outbreak of deadly bird flu, the city’s political leader said on Thursday. Chief executive Donald Tsang told the legislature that while the territory was closely monitoring the spread of the H5N1 virus in China, it should also remain on guard.
Workers have abandoned a third attempt to cap a poisonous gas leak from a drilling site in south-western China that has forced the evacuation of almost 15 000 residents, state media reported on Thursday. Officials said they were struggling to raise supplies and funds for the evacuees, lending a note of urgency to the capping work.
China, officially celebrating the ‘Year of Italy’, has reacted angrily to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s comments that Chinese people used to ”boil babies”. ”We are not satisfied with such remarks, which are groundless and lack any facts,” the foreign ministry said in a brief statement faxed to Agence France-Presse on Wednesday.
Thousands of people in south-west China, who were evacuated after a weekend gas explosion, remained unable to return home on Tuesday with dangerous gas still leaking, officials said. The explosion on Saturday in Chongqing municipality led to the evacuation of 11 500 people from villages near the site of the leak.
Nearly 60% of "foreign-brand" liquor found in four major Chinese cities is fake, according to a random check carried out by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. The administration inspected 40 bottles, mostly cognac and whisky, in 19 retail outlets and found 23 with Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and certain Scotch whisky labels were fake.
The world’s tallest man is searching high and low for a girlfriend to share his life with, a Hong Kong news report said on Thursday. Bao Xishun (55) from China is 2,36m tall but has never married or even dated because of his extreme height, according to the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily.
The British Museum’s first exhibition in China has left many Chinese wondering where their own country’s priceless artefacts in the collection from the world’s oldest museum have gone. ”Why are there no Chinese artefacts and [who] do the objects really belong to?” asked the official Xinhua news agency on Monday.
A Chinese dissident was jailed on Friday for 10 years over an essay he posted on the internet, a United States-based rights body said, as China continued its crackdown on people who express anti-government views. Ren Zhiyuan was sentenced by the Jining City Intermediate Court for ”subverting state sovereignty”, New York-based Human Rights in China said.
Jaywalkers in China beware. Crossing the street against the lights could lead to punishments at work, including being overlooked for a promotion and a loss of salary bonuses. China’s law on road safety states that every work unit or company has the responsibility to educate their staff on traffic regulations.
Promoters of China’s controversial wireless encryption system on Tuesday accused backers of a rival United States system of ”dirty tricks” after the world industrial standards group rejected the Chinese system for global use. China will keep promoting its Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure standard and will use it domestically despite the decision.
Forget the Mao suits of a generation ago. Actually, forget about any clothes at all. Naked wedding photos are the hot new trend among young couples in once deeply conservative China. Even in Anhui, a largely rural province in the east, many newly-weds are having their pictures taken in the nude, to the fury of their parents’ generation.
China will increase its spending on science and technology by nearly 20% this year in a move to remain competitive internationally, the government said on Friday. The central government will allocate 71,6-billion yuan ($8,8-billion) from its budget for science and technology in 2006, up 19,2% over last year, said Zhang Shaochun, assistant minister of finance.