When Chinese fisherman CaiTu hauled in a 200-pound, 100-year-old sea turtle, he knew he had to do the right thing and release the endangered animal. The decision wasn’t easy: Cai could have earned two months’ wages by selling the delicacy to a restaurant, where it would have been made into soup. “I looked into that turtle’s eyes and saw something […]
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Beijing The cloud of pollution over Beijing grew so dense this week that much of the city was rendered invisible. Hundreds of flights were grounded, auto traffic was stalled for scores of miles, and residents rushed to buy masks and air filters. Chinese officials downplayed the air-quality crisis, as usual, saying their readings showed that air pollution was “moderate.” But […]
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■ When Lindsay Crumbley Scallan lost her underwater camera in the waters off Maui, Hawaii, in 2007, she figured her precious vacation photos were gone forever. But six years later, Scallan’s camera washed up on a beach over 5,200 miles away inTaiwan, with its memory card intact. Scallan was identified after pictures of her from the camera were shown on […]
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Pet stores in China are struggling to meet demand for the country’s latest animal craze—chow dogs dyed black-and-white to make them look like pandas. “Ten years ago the natural instinct of a Chinese person was to eat a dog,” said pet-store owner Hsin Ch’en. “Now we are like Westerners and want one as a companion.” Hsin said the panda dogs […]
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The Chinese government has revealed that it has a nationwide surveillance system to track dissidents, and it bears the same name as the evil computer network that tries to destroy humanity in the Terminator movies. Skynet, begun in 2005, has at least 20 million cameras installed across the country in public places, including on buses and streets, and outside dissidents’ […]
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Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has accused Lego of ‘censorship and discrimination’ after it refused to let him to use its bricks in a new exhibition. The artist also suggested the Danish toymaker was worried about offending Beijing as it looks to expand in China and build a new manufacturing plant there. Lego had refused a bulk order for bricks […]
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The smog which suffocates Beijing has gotten so bad that the Chinese media has concluded that something must be done. Poor visibility has led to canceled flights and highway closings. The level of particulates in the air topped 35 times the World Health Organization’s safety limit. China’s new leaders “appear to be sending a signal that they want to allow […]
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Beijing Fatter and sicker: Prevalence of type 2 diabetes has more than tripled in China over the past decade as Chinese people adopt a more Western diet and lifestyle. “China, unfortunately, has become the world’s capital for diabetes,” said Michael Rosenblatt, chief medical officer of pharmaceutical giant Merck. “The government is starting to pay more attention, as this is the […]
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People living in Changchun, northeast China’s Jilin province have called for old public toilets that were partly converted into a restaurant to be put back to their original use, according to chinanews.com. “Why can’t we use this public toilet? I have to climb up six flights of stairs back home to use the toilet,” a senior resident surnamed Zhao said. […]
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Beijing Mass arrests: In one of the biggest crackdowns on civil society groups in decades, Chinese authorities have detained and questioned at least 238 lawyers and human rights activists over the past two weeks. At least 20 activists remain incarcerated, and the whereabouts of six of them are unclear. Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights. Watch, said those still […]
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