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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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/ 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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/ 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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/ 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
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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/ 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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/ 7 September 2005
In Buddhist teachings, making money is an unlikely path to nirvana, but in increasingly iconoclastic China it just may well be a leap of faith. Taking a page from their Communist Party brethren, 18 monks in Shanghai have signed up for master of business administration classes in hopes of better managing their temple.
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/ 7 September 2005
China could move ahead the launch of its next manned space mission to as early as this month, a state newspaper reported on Wednesday. ”The launch time for the Shenzhou VI is around September or October,” Zhang Qingwei, president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told the Shanghai Morning Post.
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/ 2 September 2005
Fourteen people died and 15 were missing on Friday after Typhoon Talim’s whipping rain and winds walloped China’s east coast and Taiwan, causing widespread damage. Meanwhile, an extremely strong typhoon is churning towards Japan and is on course to hit the nation’s main southern island next week.
A Chinese researcher has warned of a new threat to public health and morality — naked internet chatting. Up to 20 000 Chinese log on to chat rooms each night in various states of undress and communicate using web cams, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said on Tuesday.
Chinese sports fans are hailing the man they call ”Flying Spectacles Man” as their newest star. Hu Kai, nicknamed for his ever-present gold rimmed glasses, has dominated the front pages of Chinese sports newspapers since winning the men’s 100m sprint at the University Games in Izmir, Turkey, on Sunday.
The death toll from Typhoon Matsa that ripped through eastern China rose to 10 on Monday with seven of the casualties reported in Shanghai, state media said. Matsa slammed into coastal areas over the weekend, tearing up roads, reservoirs and houses, causing -million of damage in China’s glitziest city, Shanghai, alone.
Four Chinese airline companies have agreed to buy 42 Boeing 787 jets for a total of $5,04-billion, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. The purchase comes ahead of an expected visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the United States and is a coup for Chicago-based Boeing over European arch-rival Airbus SAS.
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.
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.
World number three Ernie Els led from start to finish to win the rain-affected ,5-million BMW Asian Open Monday by a massive 13 shots and record his third victory of the year. The 35-year-old South African, who pockets the winner’s cheque of 000, finished at 26 under par for the tournament.
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.
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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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/ 17 January 2005
The last time an ousted Chinese leader died, in 1989, millions marched in the streets and gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in student-led protests that shook Beijing’s Communist Party leadership to the core. Today’s leaders looked determined to ensure that the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang on Monday does not result in similar upheavals.
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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/ 26 November 2004
Cheating husbands in China’s flashy commercial hub of Shanghai, beware, female detectives will soon be watching you. China’s first all-female detective agency based in the southwestern city of Chengdu is expanding to Shanghai and is preparing to open as early as December in the nation’s divorce capital.
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/ 16 November 2004
Police in Shanghai have smashed an illegal gambling ring betting on fights between pet crickets and confiscated 1,8-million yuan ($220 000), state media said on Tuesday. Cricket fighting, a hobby of the ancient Chinese, dates back to as early as the Tang dynasty of 618 to 907 AD.
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/ 7 September 2004
Floods unleashed by torrential rains have killed at least 114 people and left dozens more missing in southwestern China, prompting authorities to put the massive Three Gorges hydroelectric project on alert, officials reported on Tuesday. Authorities called in thousands of army and navy personnel to help after five days of continual downpours in Sichuan province.
Typhoon Aere crashed into mainland China, unleashing torrential rains and prompting the evacuation of nearly a million people as the death toll climbed to 35 on Thursday after a mudslide killed 15 villagers in Taiwan, burying all of the village’s homes in just 10 seconds. Meanwhile, another typhoon is building up.
China will get its first bullfights in the next few months, complete with matadors from Spain, but the bulls will have to come from somewhere else, the government says. Organisers of the bullfights, planned for China’s National Day holidays in early October, had planned to airlift six bulls from Spain for the events.
A Chinese court has ruled against two students who sued their high school in Shanghai for breach of privacy after authorities broadcast a video of them kissing, state press reported on Tuesday. The court decided that Fuxing High School had the right to monitor student behaviour with hidden cameras.
China is mulling a -billion coal project with South African company Sasol that could give the energy-hungry mainland an additional six million tons of oil annually. In September a Sino-South Africa team will begin studying the feasibility of building two coal liquefaction production bases in northern Shaanxi province and Ningxia autonomous region.
Wu Wei, president of one of China’s largest makers of adult sex toys, says it is only a matter of time before couples accept ”marital aids” as being ”just like drinking water”. ”In five or 10 years, Chinese people will be richer and they will be living a better life and will also want more sexual pleasure,” said Wu, part-owner of the Sino-Japanese Wenzhou Lover Health Product Company.
The world was offered a lesson in how to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty at an international conference in Shanghai last week, posing a powerful alternative to Western development models. Presidents and heads of international institutions paid homage to China’s successes.
Coca-Cola and a Chinese competitor have failed to reach a court settlement in a dispute over the Chinese characters used in the names of their bottled drinks, company lawyers said on Friday. The lawyers’ statements contradicted extensive reports in China’s state-controlled media saying a settlement had been reached.
An alarming rise in the ratio of boys among newborns in China suggests that increasing numbers of female foetuses are being aborted by parents intent on having a male child. More than 116 male births were recorded for every 100 female births