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.
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/ 7 February 2005
A government agency’s ban on visitors bearing Lunar New Year gifts from entering its building to curb corruption has stirred ridicule from the public, state media said on Monday. Gift-giving is a long-practised tradition during the new-year period but in present-day China it has become a way to bribe government officials.
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/ 4 February 2005
The world’s first newspaper made of gold has been published in south China, selling for 69 000 yuan (about R51 000) a copy, state media reported on Thursday. The one-off publishing event was launched by the <i>China Economic Daily</i> in the boom city of Shenzhen, the Xinhua news agency said.
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/ 1 February 2005
China issued emergency regulations on Tuesday to counter an outbreak of the deadly spinal disease meningitis that has killed at least 16 people among 258 cases this month. The whole country has been affected with the exception of Fujian province in the south-east, Hainan in the south and the Tibet region.
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/ 26 January 2005
China has ordered education authorities and schools across the country to ban beauty contests in schools, state media reported on Tuesday. "The ministry of education explicitly opposes holding beauty contests in primary and high schools," a ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
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/ 20 January 2005
China is considering setting up a post office in Antarctica after several trial deliveries to the world’s southernmost continent, state media reported on Wednesday. The Beijing International Post Office plans to send an official to the Great Wall research station near the South Pole to investigate if there is a need for such a service.
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/ 13 January 2005
Villagers digging in China’s rich fossil beds have uncovered the remains of a tiny dinosaur in the belly of a mammal, a startling discovery for scientists who have long believed early mammals couldn’t possibly attack and eat a dinosaur. Scientists say the animal’s last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs about 130-million years ago.
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/ 10 January 2005
The family of a newborn baby who last week became the poster child for China’s one-child policy has turned down a number of lucrative advertising contracts for diapers and milk formula, state media said on Monday. Zhang Yichi was declared China’s 1,3-billionth citizen when he was born to a huge media blitz in a Beijing hospital on Thursday.
Agencies in China’s Chengdu city are offering rented girlfriends to bachelors who need someone to show off to relatives during the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year, state press said on Wednesday. A hired girlfriend can cost as much as 300 yuan (about R200) a day.
A south-western Chinese town has spent nearly -million on a replica of the country’s most famous monument, the Great Wall, in a bid to draw more tourist dollars, state press said on Friday. The 1 680m wall erected near Chengdu city in China’s Sichuan province is a fraction of the mammoth original structure.
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/ 23 December 2004
A speeding taxi driver who ran a series of red lights trying to rush a heavily pregnant woman to hospital may face fines and have his licence endorsed, state media said on Thursday. Gao Haijun jumped several red lights on Sunday after an anxious couple asked him to take them to the closest delivery ward.