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/ 27 November 2005
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has visited Harbin in the country’s north-east and ordered local leaders to restore running water to 3,8-million people who spent a fourth day without supplies after a benzene spill in a nearby river. Beijing has also apologised to Moscow for the toxic chemicals flowing toward Russia.
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/ 26 November 2005
At least 14 died, hundreds more were injured and thousands of houses collapsed when an earthquake measuring 5,7 on the Richter scale hit near a popular tourist spot in east China on Saturday, officials said. The epicentre was near the city of Jiujiang, home to 500 000 people and a scenic spot for centuries.
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/ 25 November 2005
Environmental experts on Friday warned the slick of cancer-causing benzene moving along China’s Songhua river could pose a long-term risk to human health, contaminate the food chain and damage the region’s fragile ecosystem. As the 80km-long highly toxic column moved into Harbin, capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, analysts said dangers would remain for years.
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/ 25 November 2005
There’s only one place in Wong Yiu-keung’s heart — and that’s for late martial arts legend Bruce Lee. He dedicates most of his time to running the Bruce Lee Club, Lee’s only fan club in Hong Kong, while he has put his family, friends and career on the sidelines to organise the city’s first festival dedicated to the kung fu hero.
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/ 24 November 2005
An 80km-long slick of highly toxic benzene flowed along the icy Songhua river into one of China’s biggest cities on Thursday, contaminating water supplies for up to four million people. The carcinogenic chemical reached the outskirts of Harbin at about 5am on Thursday, authorities said.
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/ 21 November 2005
The upset of the year in the season’s most gripping final came to the rescue of a troubled ATP Masters Cup which was rocked by high-profile withdrawals and complaints over the playing surface. David Nalbandian’s shock, come-from-behind win over hot favourite Roger Federer in a pulsating five-setter drew a line under the farcical early days when five big names dropped out.
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/ 20 November 2005
Tennis chiefs announced on Sunday that they were replacing the third set in doubles matches with a tie-breaker, brushing off objections from top players. The third set will consist of a first-to-10 tie-breaker to speed up play. There will also be no advantage played in the first two sets, with games decided by the first point after deuce.
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/ 18 November 2005
Five days ago, David Nalbandian was packing his things for a fishing trip in his native Argentina. Now he’s one match away from a place in the Masters Cup final. Nalbandian has found some great form since his late call-up to replace the injured Andy Roddick, taking Roger Federer to three sets before whitewashing Guillermo Coria and Ivan Ljubicic.
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/ 17 November 2005
Russian Nikolay Davydenko hopes to take advantage of a depleted field after making it to the semifinals of the season-ending Masters Cup. Davydenko will be the highest-ranked player in the semifinals behind two-time defending champion Roger Federer.
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/ 16 November 2005
World number one Roger Federer has given his support to Andre Agassi after the United States veteran was criticised for his early withdrawal from the Masters Cup tennis tournament. Federer, the only top-five player left in the season finale after Agassi and Rafael Nadal added their names to the injury list, said the eight-time Grand Slam champion deserved credit for turning up.
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/ 14 November 2005
Andre Agassi lost 6-4, 6-2 to Nikolay Davydenko and then pulled out of the Tennis Masters Cup on Monday, less than an hour after second-ranked Rafael Nadal withdrew with an injured left foot. Agassi lasted one hour and 14 minutes against Davydenko and then told reporters he had to withdraw after aggravating an ankle problem.
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/ 9 November 2005
With 1 000 days to go before Beijing holds the 2008 Olympics, confidence is high the games will be a sporting extravaganza that will showcase the country’s arrival among the world’s leading nations. Aside from the smooth running of the event and the expected strong performance of its athletes, China is working hard to ensure the games fully reflect the nation’s political and economic rise.
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/ 9 November 2005
China warned on Wednesday a bird flu outbreak in northeastern Liaoning province had not yet been controlled and could become a ”disaster”, mainly due to the use of fake and shoddy poultry vaccines. ”In Heishan county, Liaoning province, the epidemic is still serious,” said Agriculture Minister Du Qingling, two weeks after poultry started dying from the bird flu there.
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/ 9 November 2005
Cuba will be looking to put the Russian Federation in its proper place as the boys from the Caribbean seek to regain their place atop amateur boxing’s pecking order at the world championships in China from Saturday. The Cubans have sent four reigning Olympic gold medalists to the China slugfest led by Odlanier Solis, who has stepped up a division after also winning the heavyweight gold in the last world championships.
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/ 9 November 2005
World number one Tiger Woods says his mother’s Buddhist beliefs and his father’s combat experience with the Green Berets during the Vietnam War are fundamental to his success on the golf course. The 10-time major winner said his intense powers of concentration and fierce competitiveness on the golf course are a result of his Thai mother’s Buddhist influence and his father’s special forces’ tour in Vietnam.
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/ 8 November 2005
Chinese number one Zhang Lian-Wei believes the presence of Tiger Woods at this week’s HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai will advance the spread of golf in China by a decade. The self-taught Zhang says the 10-time major winner will massively boost interest in the game in the world’s most populous nation.
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/ 7 November 2005
A Chinese company has had its licence suspended after it tried to make money by selling land on the moon, state media reported on Monday. The Beijing Lunar Village Aeronautics Science and Technology Company managed to sell large swathes of pristine lunar property before being shut down, the Xinhua news agency said.
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/ 7 November 2005
From esteemed college professor to one of China’s most recent prisoners of conscience, the fate of Zheng Yichun (47) has followed a familiar pattern for the country’s growing community of cyber dissidents. The former English literature professor was sentenced to seven years in prison in September for posting essays critical of the government online.
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/ 4 November 2005
Nearly 9 000 chickens have died in China’s fourth outbreak of avian flu in just more than two weeks with migratory birds the most likely culprits, the ministry of agriculture said on Friday. Also, about 4 000 poultry and water fowl have died in fresh outbreaks of bird flu in northern Vietnam’s Bac Giang province.
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/ 4 November 2005
Harry Han was pleased with himself. In the space of a few minutes, the dapper, handsome 29-year-old had pocketed a couple of women’s phone numbers and was now coolly scanning the crowd for his next target. ”There are five hours and each date takes eight minutes, so I can get to know a lot of people,” Han said on a recent Saturday evening of matchmaking in China’s largest city, Shanghai.
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/ 1 November 2005
China said on Tuesday it would seek to improve relations with Japan despite the appointment of hardliners to the new Cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. "We have noted that Koizumi has reshuffled his Cabinet," foreign ministry spokesperson Kong Quan said.
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/ 26 October 2005
At least 10 children died and 45 were injured, five of them seriously, in a stampede at a primary school in south-western China’s Sichuan province, state media said on Wednesday. The stampede started when children panicked as they were going down a dark stairwell to leave the school on Tuesday evening.
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/ 25 October 2005
China was struck by another outbreak of bird flu and a fourth person died from the virus in Indonesia on Tuesday amid warnings that the lethal disease could cost the Asia region up to -billion. Health ministers and experts from 30 countries are meeting in Canada to forge a coordinated international effort against the virus.
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/ 24 October 2005
China plans to send more athletes overseas to gain big event experience so they can make a mark on home turf at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, according to one of the country’s top athletics officials. Feng Shuoyong, vice-director of China’s Athletics Administrative Centre, says they need to be toughened mentally to handle the pressure that comes with such major competitions.
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/ 21 October 2005
While everyone knows China is a rising power, they can only guess at how strong its armed forces are, or how much it is spending to build its military might. The issue of the size of China’s defence budget reemerged this week as United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Beijing.
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/ 20 October 2005
The World Health Organisation expressed concern on Thursday about the latest outbreak of bird flu in China as the ministry of agriculture revealed more than 91 000 birds had been culled. A Thai farmer has died from bird flu after contact with infected poultry, and in Russia, the virus has been discovered in the province of Tula.
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/ 20 October 2005
A United States company has set up operations in China to sell land on the moon for 289 yuan () an acre, cashing in on renewed interest in space travel after the successful five-day voyage of Shenzhou VI. The so-called Lunar Embassy is touted as the first extraterrestrial estate agency.
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/ 17 October 2005
China’s most-acclaimed modern writer Ba Jin — whose novels criticised traditional Chinese society — died on Monday in Shanghai, state media said. He was 100. A native of Chengdu city in south-west China’s Sichuan province, Ba was considered by the government and other Chinese authors to be the greatest writer in modern China.
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/ 17 October 2005
Michael Schumacher’s 2005 finale was a dismal ending to a season he’d rather forget. The seven-time world champion’s Shanghai woes resurfaced at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday when he was forced to start from the pit lane after a pre-race collision. Then, 22 laps into the race, he spun out and calmly walked off the track.
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/ 17 October 2005
China on Monday strongly protested over Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s controversial visit to a war shrine, calling it a ”serious provocation” ”The Chinese government firmly opposes Prime Minister Koizumi worshipping the Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines A-grade war criminals,” China’s ambassador to Japan Wang Yi said in Tokyo, according to the Xinhua news agency.
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/ 17 October 2005
Two Chinese astronauts returned safely to Earth on Monday, touching down to a hero’s welcome as China’s second-ever manned space mission marked another step in its drive to becoming a space power. Astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng came back from a five-day flight, parachuting softly onto a field in Inner Mongolia in the the capsule of their <i>Shenzhou VI</i> spacecraft.
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/ 16 October 2005
High oil prices are among the biggest threats to the global economy and more needs to be done to increase oil production, refining capacity and investment, top financial officials of the world’s leading economies said on Sunday. The Group of 20 wrapped up two days of meetings in the outskirts of Beijing.