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china: news and opinion

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21 Nov 09 visit China’s spirits hold Mickey Mouse at bay Mickey Mouse has met an unexpected obstacle on his chirpy march to bring Walt Disney’s consumer culture into China — ancestor worship.
21 Nov 09 visit Barack Obama dream fades as China visit fails to bring change Gazing serenely from the Great Wall of China last week, President Barack Obama appeared to be making the most of one of the supreme perks of White House occupancy — a private guided tour of Asia’s most spectacular tourist destination.
19 Nov 09 visit Tiananmen student protester Zhou Yongjun faces third jail term after Hong Kong arrest A student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests has been put on trial and faces a third prison term in China after he was handed over to the Chinese police by the authorities in Hong Kong.
18 Nov 09 visit So long, Fu Long: Vienna’s favourite panda returns to China A two-year-old panda who has delighted visitors to a zoo in Vienna has been sent to China.
18 Nov 09 visit Conern mounts as US bears costs of Afghan war while China reaps the profits Thirty miles south of Kabul there is a complex of blue and white bungalows, ringed by a blast-proof fence, that bears testament to the new Great Game in Central Asia.
18 Nov 09 visit Obama carrying his own umbrella may be just the right stick for China President Obama did not come to China carrying a big stick, but he did carry his own umbrella. It was a gesture that impressed ordinary Chinese accustomed to seeing aides shielding their own leaders from the rain. Just what kind of impression Mr Obama...
18 Nov 09 visit Obama reaches summit but still has peaks to surmount President Obama emerged from a summit with his Chinese counterpart yesterday urging Beijing to resume talks with the exiled Dalai Lama but his host responded by attacking US protectionism.
17 Nov 09 visit Obama urges China to resume Tibet talks President Obama emerged from talks with his Chinese counterpart today in which he urged Beijing to resume dialogue with the exiled Dalai Lama, while President Hu Jintao issued a thinly veiled barb against US protectionism.
16 Nov 09 visit Obama makes a gesture of humility to China — then delivers a few home truths
16 Nov 09 visit China rounds up dissidents as President Obama touches down in Beijing Chinese officials have rounded up dozens of Beijings’s tiny coterie of activists and petitioners in case any dissident tries to approach President Obama, who arrived in the city today.
16 Nov 09 visit Obama in China criticises internet censorship President Barack Obama has used a highly unusual live question-and-answer session with Chinese students in Shanghai to criticise censorship of the internet, telling the world’s biggest online population that a free flow of information can be a source ...
16 Nov 09 visit President Obama will urge China to join US in ‘world leadership’ Air Force One touched down in Shanghai in driving rain last night, carrying a President who in three days hopes to convince China that the relationship between the world’s two largest economies can be a joint project in global leadership, not a zero-s...
14 Nov 09 visit China's hidden night of state bloodshed POSTERS went up on lampposts and walls all around drab neighbourhoods in the northwestern area of China last week, announcing a series of executions.
14 Nov 09 visit Beijing gets the jitters as free talking Barack Obama flies in The stage is set, the television lights and internet links ready, and all that matters now is the performer and his audience.
13 Nov 09 visit Chinese prepare their big questions for Obama When are you going to give New Mexico back to Mexico? Can you tell me about your romantic life? Would you rather be President of America or President of China?
13 Nov 09 visit China eyes the top slot in World Memory Championships As tales of sporting domination go, it is one that sounds woefully familiar. First the British invent a game, then the Germans show us how it is really played, until finally the Chinese arrive and, by sheer weight of numbers — not to mention obsessi...
13 Nov 09 visit China still in two minds about its role as world’s newest superpower Some are born great, some achieve it, some have greatness thrust upon them: over the past 5,000 years China has experienced them all. But as President Obama comes to call, it is the last that most worries the Chinese.
12 Nov 09 visit Report opens door on China’s ‘black jails’ where citizens are beaten and raped China’s poorest and weakest citizens are being locked in secret “black jails” to prevent them from taking their grievances to the country’s leaders in Beijing.
12 Nov 09 visit China and India engaged in 21st century ‘scramble for Africa’ In the 19th century it was European colonialists who scrambled for Africa’s riches. Today it is Asia’s emerging powers who are trawling the continent for raw materials to fuel their economies.
11 Nov 09 visit Tension grows between China and India as Asia slips into cold war You have to go to a tropical paradise to find the latest front in the brewing cold war between China and India.
11 Nov 09 visit Both sides blame America for worsening relations between India and China When Tibet comes up in conversation between President Obama and his Chinese counterpart next week, it will be because Beijing wants a US commitment to recognise the Himalayan region as part of China. Beijing may also have another unspoken but crucial...
10 Nov 09 visit Chinese police raid workshops producing counterfeit condoms Safe sex may not be quite so safe in China. Police have uncovered underground workshops churning out fake condoms in the latest expose of China’s counterfeit industry.
09 Nov 09 visit Nine people executed for summer’s ethnic riots in western China Nine people have been executed for participating in violent ethnic riots in China’s mainly Muslim north west that left nearly 200 people dead.
09 Nov 09 visit Chinese official Shen Hao found dead after alcohol-fuelled dinner He was the Communist Party secretary of one of the most famous villages in China. He was ruddy-faced and jovial. Now, just 46, he has been found dead after an alcohol-fuelled dinner.
08 Nov 09 visit China’s chequebook diplomacy boosts Africa ties with £6 billion in cheap loans China gave Africa a $10 billion ($£6 billion) helping hand at the start of a two-day summit expected to strengthen its position as a key player on the continent.
07 Nov 09 visit Vanishing glaciers jolt smokestack China AS an expedition from Chinese state television worked its way across the remote Tibetan plateau earlier this year, the explorers were amazed by what they found.
06 Nov 09 visit Dalai Lama caught in the middle as China-India border dispute comes to the boil Anyone over the age of 62 in the town of Tawang has a unique claim to fame: they have lived under four national flags — British, Tibetan, Indian and Chinese.
04 Nov 09 visit China approves Disney theme park after decade of negotiations The Magic Kingdom is to set up in the Middle Kingdom, concluding a decade of talks on a Disney park for China.
03 Nov 09 visit 'Godmother' of Chinese gangsters, Xie Caiping, jailed for 18 years One of China’s most notorious illegal casino operators, a woman who kept a stable of at least 16 young men as her lovers, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
02 Nov 09 visit Earliest snowfall in Beijing since 1987 after cloud-seeding to beat drought Cloud-seeding by Chinese meteorologists has led to the earliest snow blizzard in Beijing for two decades.
30 Oct 09 visit China website campaign reunites kidnapped child with father On Thursday a father walked into an Chinese orphanage and promptly burst into tears - before him stood the son that had been stolen from him as a baby two years earlier.
27 Oct 09 visit Chinese man who cut off finger to protest innocence wins apology A young factory driver who cut off his little finger to protest his innocence in the face of a police sting operation has won an apology from the city government of Shanghai.
27 Oct 09 visit China champion banned for life for drugs use China has banned its 21-year-old women’s 100-metres champion for life after she tested positive for banned drugs at the National Games.
26 Oct 09 visit Ministers back Blair as best man to lead EU Tony Blair should be made head of a stronger European Union that would be able to compete with China and the United States on the world stage, the Foreign Secretary said yesterday.
23 Oct 09 visit Hope of cleaner skies as Beijing residents switch from coal to electricity The brick walls are grey, the sky is leaden, the alley is choked with dust and rubble as workmen fill in a long channel running along Tanggong Hutong, in the heart of old Beijing (Jane Macartney writes). The men have just finished laying an electricity...
23 Oct 09 visit Tibetan protestors executed for Lhasa riot killings Tibetan exiles have reported the first executions of those convicted for last year's riot in Lhasa, with at least two people put to death in a rare implementation of capital punishment in the restive region.
19 Oct 09 visit China in worldwide treasure hunt for artefacts looted from Yuan Ming Yuan palace China is to send a team of artefact hunters to nearly 50 countries to track down thousands of treasures looted by foreign armies 150 years ago.
17 Oct 09 visit One giant step for China Any day now, at a hidden airbase in the forests of northeast China, a panel of doctors and air-force officers will make the final choice of the first Chinese woman to go into space. When that happens, she will step out of the shadows of military secrecy...
15 Oct 09 visit Han Chinese sentenced to death for killing Uighur after race riots China has sentenced a Han Chinese to death for the revenge murder of a Muslim Uighur in the aftermath of China's deadliest ethnic violence in decades.
15 Oct 09 visit Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao makes unprecedented apology - over one word China’s Prime Minister has caused a sensation with an unprecedented letter of apology by a Communist Party leader.
14 Oct 09 visit Tourists killed in hot-air balloon accident in China A hot-air balloon has exploded and crashed in one of the most popular tourist spots in China, killing four Dutch tourists and injuring three people.
14 Oct 09 visit Wang Chuanfu tops China's rich list China’s new richest man named his company with prophetic accuracy. Wang Chuanfu called the firm BYD - or Build Your Dream.
12 Oct 09 visit 'Micheal Jackson' women in Tanzania search for Chinese husbands Zaina, 28, a tall Tanzanian woman, intends to cash in on the new Chinese presence in Africa. She is planning to find herself an oriental husband.
12 Oct 09 visit China tightens grip on Africa with $4.4bn lifeline for Guinea junta$ While the rest of the world recoiled in horror at recent events in Guinea, where at least 150 pro-democracy supporters were killed and dozens of women publicly raped by government soldiers, China has sensed an opportunity to steal another march on Western...
12 Oct 09 visit Uighurs sentenced to death over China's deadliest riots which killed 200 Six men have been sentenced to death in the first convictions after mobs of Muslim Uighurs rampaged through a western city in July, leaving nearly 200 people dead in the deadliest riot in China for decades.
11 Oct 09 visit China jails corrupt government offical A government official whose taste for expensive cigarettes and very large cars triggered an online furore in China has been sent to jail for corruption.
09 Oct 09 visit China loses grip on 60th anniversary security China’s vast security operation, involving tens of thousands of police and hundreds of thousands of volunteers, to ensure proper celebration of the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule is starting to fray.
05 Oct 09 visit Barack Obama accused of snubbing Dalai Lama to placate China President Obama was accused of bowing to Chinese pressure and snubbing the Dalai Lama as he prepares for a Sino-US summit in Beijing next month.
05 Oct 09 visit Tensions ease as China and North Korea mark diplomatic anniversary China and North Korea exchanged messages of goodwill today during a visit to Pyongyang by the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao which diplomats hope could see an easing of regional tensions.
04 Oct 09 visit ‘Dear Leader’ welcomes Chinese comrade to boost hopes of a nuclear agreement The Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, has arrived in North Korea for talks with its reclusive leader Kim Jong Il amid hopes of advancing nuclear disarmament by the pariah state after months of tension.

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