China’s state media on Tuesday hailed Premier Wen Jiabao as the world’s sixth-most-popular politician on the social networking site Facebook — well ahead of United States President George Bush. Wen Jiabao’s profile was set up two days after he rushed to the scene of the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province to oversee rescue efforts.
Chinese medical teams have fanned out across the earthquake zone, disinfecting makeshift camps and educating survivors, and on Monday the Health Ministry said it could guarantee there would be no epidemics. Where bodies could not be cremated, they had been been buried deep underground and far from water sources to prevent contamination
It was an off-the-cuff remark on the red carpet at the Cannes film festival. But on Thursday it led to the embarrassment of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, an apology by one of the world’s great luxury brands, and the undiluted anger of a global superpower.
Troops armed with dynamite scrambled on Tuesday to blast through a huge wall of debris that is damming a rising quake lake in south-west China and putting more than a million people at risk. With the May 12 earthquake death toll already standing at more than 65 000, officials are desperate to avoid another disaster.
A big aftershock rattled south-west China on Sunday killing at least one person and injuring 400 others, state media reported, nearly a fortnight after a big quake killed tens of thousands in the same area. More than 70 000 houses toppled during Sunday’s tremor in Sichuan province, state television reported. The 5,8 magnitude aftershock was epicentred 40km west-northwest of Guangyuan.
From tent cities in stricken Sichuan province to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, sirens wailed and millions of Chinese stood for three minutes on Monday to mourn tens of thousands who died in last week’s earthquake. The moment was observed across the vast country of 1,3-billion people at 2.28pm local time, exactly a week after the quake struck.
Police tried to stop anguished relatives from streaming into one of the worst-affected areas of China’s massive earthquake on Sunday, as another strong aftershock hit the area and the death toll rose to nearly 32 500. Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last week’s devastating 7,9-magnitude quake.
China poured more troops into the earthquake-ravaged province of Sichuan on Wednesday to quicken a search for survivors as time ran out for thousands of people buried under rubble and mud. Across the region, weary rescuers pulled at tangled chunks of buildings and peered into crevices for survivors after Monday’s 7,9 magnitude quake crumpled homes, schools and hospitals.
Heavy rainfall and wrecked roads hampered rescuers’ efforts to reach the areas hardest-hit by China’s worst earthquake in three decades on Tuesday as the death toll rose to nearly 10 000. State media reports indicated that the number of dead was likely to soar, with Xinhua saying 10 000 people remained buried in the Mianzhu area of Sichuan province.
North Koreans waved flags, plastic flowers and danced in the streets of Pyongyang to welcome the Olympic torch on Monday after the destitute state had promised its main benefactor China an ”astonishing” show. The global torch relay ahead of the Beijing Games in August has prompted protests against China’s rights record in Tibet.
Nationalist protests against the French supermarket chain Carrefour spread across China on Sunday, with thousands demonstrating outside stores over the West’s stance on Tibet. The authorities appeared to be trying to damp down the protests, with the official media urging citizens to be ”calm” and ”rational”.
China said it was outraged by a resolution by United States lawmakers urging an end to a crackdown in Tibet as a Beijing-run newspaper linked al-Qaeda to claimed plots to attack the Beijing Olympics. The condemnation came in response to a US House of Representatives resolution urging China to open dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
Anti-government protests that spread from Tibet into western provinces are under control, the Chinese government said on Sunday, as much of the region remained in lockdown. Thousands of troops have poured into areas with large Tibetan populations in Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai and even Yunnan, which has not seen unrest.
China warned of a ”life and death” struggle with the Dalai Lama’s supporters today, as it sought to underscore its control of Tibet by claiming that over 100 rioters had surrendered to police. Officials had promised ”leniency” for anyone who handed themselves in before midnight on Monday, and warned that others would face harsh punishment.
China warned of a ”life and death” struggle with the Dalai Lama on Wednesday, as it sought to end a wave of protests in its Tibetan regions with arrests and tightened political control. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Tibetan spiritual leader of masterminding the protests from his base in the Indian town of Dharamsala.
Suspected ”terrorists” killed in a raid in north-west China’s Muslim-dominated Xinjiang region earlier this year had been planning an attack on the Olympics, a top official said on Sunday. In separate comments, another high-level official from the same region said authorities had on Friday foiled a planned ”terrorist attack” on a passenger jet.
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/ 20 February 2008
A group of Chinese alcohol producers is trying to overturn a ban on government officials enjoying a lunchtime tipple that has seen a fall in restaurant trade, state media reported on Wednesday. Officials in several cities in central Henan province were banned from drinking during their lunch break in an effort to improve government efficiency.
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/ 26 November 2007
Chinese leaders hailed images sent back from from the country’s first lunar satellite on Monday, saying they showed their nation had thrust itself into the front ranks of global technological powers. Premier Wen Jiabao, visiting the scientists who have guided the probe Chang’e 1 into space and around the moon, proclaimed the mission a complete success.
A suspended bus company manager may have sparked a fierce bus blaze that killed 27 and put another 11 passengers in hospital, the official Xinhua agency said late on Tuesday. The bus, with 38 people on board, was heading downtown when the fire erupted just after 5pm local time.