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/ 5 February 2008

China predicts ‘final victory’ in weather war

China’s prime minister said ”victory” was in sight on Tuesday with the country finally overcoming huge transport and power problems caused by weeks of savage weather. A huge backlog of passengers left stranded at airports, train stations and bus depots by blizzards and icy temperatures in the last three weeks appeared to be clearing.

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/ 1 February 2008

China snow leaves millions in cold and dark

Millions of Chinese faced a humanitarian crisis on Friday, as petrol and food reserves dwindled and yet more bad weather was forecast for a country paralysed by record-breaking cold and snow. More than 160 counties and cities in central China were suffering blackouts and water shortages, Xinhua news agency said.

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/ 16 January 2007

More help needed to fight malaria in Africa

Aid agencies and African states called for more help on Tuesday to fight malaria, a disease that kills more than a million people each year, 90% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. A dire shortage of money, infrastructure and medical personnel continues to make drugs inaccessible to people who most need them — children and pregnant women, the two groups most vulnerable to the disease.

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/ 13 January 2006

TV reportedly captures Kim in luxury hotel in China

After days of frenzied speculation, a television station claimed on Friday to have captured proof of reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il living it up at a luxury hotel in China. The grainy footage broadcast by Japan’s Nippon Television station in Tokyo showed a bespectacled man with Kim’s trademark bouffant hairstyle surrounded by men in black as he got out of a limousine.

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/ 17 October 2005

China: Surge in protests

Political reform is likely to be high on the agenda of a closed-door meeting of China’s communist leaders amid growing strains between a population demanding more rights and a bureaucracy increasingly using illegal means to maintain its grip on power.

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/ 26 September 2005

Hong Kong democrats seek more talks with mainland

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.