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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.
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/ 15 October 2005
Kimi Raikkonen wrapped up his preparations for the Chinese Grand Prix by posting the fastest time in final practice in Shanghai on Saturday, handing McLaren a boost in their push for the constructors’ title. The Finn powered round the Shanghai International Circuit in 1:33,212.
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/ 14 October 2005
Seven lions attacked a cleaner on his first day at work after he took a short cut through their enclosure, state press said on Friday. Zhang Huabang was in a critical condition after mistakenly walking on Tuesday through the unlocked gate of the enclosure at Shanghai Wildlife Park to get to the other side, the <i>China Daily</i> said.
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/ 12 October 2005
For a nation that is already two years into its manned space programme, China displays a remarkable lack of consensus on what to call its men in orbit. This is no trifling matter since space travellers are probably the only profession in the world with different names in different countries, reflecting their status as belonging to a tiny elite.
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/ 12 October 2005
United States Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Wednesday that China’s ad-hoc financial system needs greater reform if the world’s fastest-growing economy is to fulfil its great economic potential. Snow is touring China ahead of a key meeting in Beijing of the Group of 20 larger developing countries and rich nations.
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/ 12 October 2005
Waving banners and banging drums, thousands of primary school children on Wednesday paraded through the northwest Chinese city of Jiuquan, celebrating the nation’s second manned foray into space. ”Shenzhou VI successfully launched,” they chanted in not entirely perfect unison, one hour after China’s most ambitious space mission yet blasted off from a secretive launch site in the desert three hours’ drive away.
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/ 10 October 2005
Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, stands 8Â 844,43m above sea level, about four meters shorter than previously thought, according to the latest Chinese survey. The new height compares with China’s previous measurement of Mount Qomolangma, the Tibetan name of the mountain, of 8Â 848,13m which was done in 1975.
There were grave fears on Wednesday about the fate of 36 police cadets still missing after a landslide killed 50 of their colleagues, as masses of people were evacuated from the worst floods in a decade swamping north China. More than 7Â 000 soldiers, police and local residents were carrying out a search-and-rescue operation.
Hope faded on Tuesday for 59 police trainees missing after a landslide in south-eastern China as the confirmed death toll from Typhoon Longwang rose to 15 and wild weather pummelled other parts of the country. Longwang landed in Fujian on Sunday after leaving at least one dead in Taiwan. So far, 15 are confirmed dead in China.
Fifty-nine trainee police officers were missing on Monday after mountain torrents swelled by Typhoon Longwang swept away two buildings at their academy in south-east China, state media reported. At least three people were killed as Typhoon Longwang brought heavy rain, flooding and strong winds to south-eastern China.
At least 34 miners were killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in China’s central province of Henan on Monday, local officials and state media reported, in yet another disaster to blight the beleaguered industry. The blast occurred around dawn in a pit belonging to the Henan Hebi Coal company, a large state-run enterprise in the north of the province.
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/ 26 September 2005
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers on Monday sought more talks with Beijing on political reform in the city after a historic first meeting with a senior Communist Party official ended in acrimony. They said tense opening talks with Zhang Dejiang, party chief of the southern economic powerhouse province of Guangdong, should be just the beginning and they should be allowed to continue pressing their case.
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/ 26 September 2005
New restrictions on internet news content in China are aimed at controlling an increasingly independent society that is demanding more rights protections. The new rules issued on Sunday by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, require internet operators to re-register their news sites and police their sites for content that can "endanger state security" and "social order".
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/ 23 September 2005
Can’t seem to navigate China’s mammoth city of Shanghai? Check your map, it’s probably counterfeit. An increasing number of drivers in Shanghai are having trouble getting to their destinations when they rely on their car’s global positioning system because many electronic maps installed are fake.
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/ 23 September 2005
Like exhausted but triumphant climbers, pudgy Chinese officials wheezed between smiles atop Kunlun mountain pass before their oxygen-outfitted locomotive whisked them southwards along bare-backed snowy peaks to the Tibetan border. At 4Â 780m, Kunlun in China’s western Qinghai province is one of the highest passes along the new Tibet railway that is rapidly nearing completion.
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/ 22 September 2005
Maria Sharapova piled on the first seven games before Shahar Peer could find her feet but then had to struggle to finally scrape a 6-0, 4-6, 6-2 win Thursday in her opening match at the China Open. Sharapova lifted the first five games against her fellow 18-year-old ranked 48th, in just 18 minutes.
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/ 22 September 2005
With surveys showing Hong Kong men prefer work to sex, the city’s women are seeking help with their love life from a pharmacy chain that has begun stocking sex toys alongside soap and shampoo. Vibrators were a surprise hit at Watson’s chain of pharmacies and sex education officials were delighted, saying it could help the sexually repressed city come out of its shell.