China has long resisted strong-arm tactics against ally North Korea despite pressure from the United States, conscious that turmoil in its neighbour could create instability across the border. China’s own interests rather than wider global concerns are at the heart of its decision-making process.
Disney came under fire from animal welfare groups on Monday for having stray dogs on its Hong Kong theme park site rounded up and killed. Around 40 dogs, some of which were used as unofficial guard dogs by construction workers, are believed to have been given lethal injections after being caught by government dog catchers.
It often takes more than brains to get a frontline job in Hong Kong, according to a new survey that found nearly half of all companies are also looking for a full head of hair. Forty-three percent of the 113 employers polled said they would not hire people with hair-loss for customer service jobs.
Joy at the birth on Tuesday of another pair of panda twins in China quickly turned to sorrow following the announcement that the world’s oldest giant panda had died after suffering from eating difficulties. Thirty-six-year old Mei Mei, equivalent in age to a 108-year-old human, died at a zoo in southern China’s Guilin city.
Forty-one miners died and 57 others are missing after two separate disasters in China’s beleagured coal-mine industry, a government agency and state media said on Monday. The bulk of the casualties came when a gas explosion ripped through a mine in China’s north-west Xinjiang region, killing at least 40 miners.
A Chinese herbalist will go without food for 50 days in full public view to prove he didn’t pull a fast one when he performed a similar feat last year, state media said on Wednesday. Chen Jianmin plans to live in a glass box placed on a stone platform in central Wuhan city from September 8, consuming only water.
The HIV/Aids pandemic could explode across Asia – where one in four new infections worldwide occurs – unless authorities do more to fight the disease.
All Chinese-run websites that fail to register with telecommunications authorities before June 30 will be temporarily closed down, state media said on Friday. The announcement was made on Friday by the Ministry of Information Industry in a bid ”to control domestic internet information services,” the Xinhua news agency said.
At least 40 children were killed on Friday when a flash flood struck a primary school in north-eastern China, hospital sources said. "There are at least 40 children who were sent to hospital to be saved and who did not survive," said a doctor at the hospital in Heilongjiang. A local bank worker said there were "at least 50 or 60 dead".
Taxis with "unlucky" number plates in Shanghai will stop operating during university entrance exams this week to appease superstitious parents, state media said on Monday. "Lots of parents refuse to use cabs with number plates they consider unlucky," said Zhao Leping, head of the Shanghai Dazhong taxi company.
At least 29 people died, 35 were missing and more than 60 000 were evacuated after flash floods and landslides swept down mountainsides in two areas of south-central China, state media said on Wednesday. National flood-control authorities on Wednesday forecast more heavy rain and flooding this month.
China lashed out at the European Union on Sunday after the 25-nation bloc took its dispute with Chinese textile imports to the World Trade Organisation, forcing an immediate curb in shipments of T-shirts and flax yarn. European and United States textile-makers say their livelihoods have been threatened by a surge in Chinese exports.
Nude business promotions have been banned in China, with Beijing taking aim at naked shop models and restaurants where food is served on the bodies of unclothed women, state media said on Sunday. The ban comes amid the increasing use of nudity or near-nakedness to advertise businesses.
Philandering communist-party officials in China’s eastern city of Nanjing will have to confess their extramarital affairs in a bid to stop corruption, according to a new regulation published on Friday. The regulation stems from concerns about declining morality among party ranks, and fears about the link between illicit affairs and corruption.
Fifty-one miners are missing and feared dead after a gas explosion early on Thursday ripped through an illegally operating coal mine near Chengde city in northern China’s Hebei province, the government said. China relies on coal for 70% of its energy needs, leading many mine owners to disregard safety in order to meet demand.
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Chinese President Hu Jintao and Taiwan’s opposition leader met on Friday, holding the highest-level talks since the two sides split amid civil war in 1949, with both calling for an end to decades of hostility. Beijing and Taipei should focus on ”peace, stability and development for the future”, Hu told Lien in a meeting shown live on television.
The sky’s the limit for the development of golf in China, according to world number three Ernie Els. The ”Big Easy”, speaking ahead of Thursday’s start of the ,5-million BMW Asian Open in Shanghai, said the understanding and appreciation of golf in the Middle Kingdom has grown in leaps and bounds over the past decade.
Thomas Bjorn on Wednesday hit back at critics who branded him a choker after a dismal final round ruined a promising US Masters. The Dane, playing in his first major since throwing away the 2003 British Open in a final-round tragedy worthy of Hamlet, was third after three rounds at Augusta and just four shots off the pace.
US Open champion Retief Goosen on Wednesday waded into the debate over women being invited to join men’s golf tournaments, saying they should be made to qualify like their male counterparts. The South African world number five said most male players think handing out sponsors’ invites to women is unfair.
World number three Ernie Els said on Wednesday that he was itching to get back into contention for golf’s biggest prizes after a disappointing United States Masters where he finished a distant 47th. The triple major-winner, launching his bid to become the first three-time winner of the Johnnie Walker Classic, said he would use the tournament to correct the ”technical faults” which plagued him at Augusta.
A man in eastern China tried to divorce his wife who has the same Chinese name as the cancer-causing dye Sudan I, which has made headlines across China in a recent food scare, state media reported on Friday. The husband of Su Danhong, the same Chinese name for the harmful Sudan Red dye, came home one day and told her he wanted a divorce.
An explosion killed at least 29 people early on Thursday when a passenger bus hit a truck carrying more than six tonnes of explosives in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi, local police said. The double-decker bus collided with the truck, causing the explosives to detonate, as the bus driver was trying to overtake it.
A Nigerian man has been jailed for four years in Hong Kong over a global e-mail scam offering a ”secret fortune” of -million, a news report said on Thursday. The e-mail went around the world offering to deposit the fortune of a dead South African businessman in return for a fee of  000.
United States-made audio players installed at Beijing’s international airport to scare birds off the runway have failed because of the "language barrier", state media said on Thursday. The machines play sounds of predatory birds, such as hawks, to shoo away birds that pose a danger to aircraft. But the pests were apparently unruffled by the "foreign" squawks.
Up to 20 people, including children, were killed in northern China when explosives stored in the home of a mine operator blew up near a school, local officials and state media said on Thursday. Local press reports said at least 20 children died and the Beixinzhuang elementary school was badly damaged in the Wednesday-afternoon blast.
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/ 24 February 2005
Leading golfers, including world number three Ernie Els and sixth-ranked Sergio Garcia, have signed up for the ,3-million Johnnie Walker Classic in Beijing. The event, which counts towards the European, Asian and Australasian tours, will be held at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Pine Valley Golf Resort and Country Club from April 21 to 24.
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/ 22 February 2005
It was billed as a chance for British Minister of Finance Gordon Brown to quiz China’s young elite about what they want from the future. And he got his answer — more Harry Potter memorabilia. In a lengthy question-and-answer session, Brown, currently on a three-day visit to China, chatted to about a dozen teenage pupils, all star English students.
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/ 17 February 2005
North Korea has affronted China. Pyongyang’s announcement that it has long possessed nuclear weapons and has no immediate intention of negotiating over the issue has left its old friend and neighbour speechless. China is attempting to cover its dismay with frenetic diplomatic activity.
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/ 17 February 2005
United States and South Korean envoys on Thursday held talks with China aimed at coaxing North Korea back into six-party nuclear talks as the CIA said the Stalinist regime could restart long-range missile testing. The visits come one week after North Korea declared publicly that it possesses nuclear weapons.
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/ 15 February 2005
At least 203 workers were killed after a gas explosion at a coal mine in north-east China in the worst mining disaster in the country’s recent history, mining officials and state media said on Tuesday. China’s coal industry, the most dangerous in the world, saw 6 027 workers die in accidents in 2004, official figures show.
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/ 15 February 2005
Surging demand for toilet paper in China has some of the nation’s suppliers in a flush, state press said on Tuesday. The vice-director of the Shanghai Paper Trade Association said he is "beginning to worry about the large wood consumption", and the industry needs to consider other technologies and uses.