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...just as the organizers were about to receive the long awaited permission from the Chaoyang governent's cultural bureau, during a meeting with officials from the National Olympic Sports Center they were informed that there might be some complications.
Stocks spurt at government rescue
Chinese stocks ended three straight days of losses with a sharp rise on Friday after the government stepped in to revive the market, cutting the trading tax and promising share buybacks.
China halved its impoverished population over the past three decades, according to Huang Yanxin, deputy director of the regulation department under the Ministry of Agriculture.
The accomplishment makes China the first nation to fulfill its objective under the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) framework.
'According to China's standards, the number of poor people dropped from 250 million in 1978 to 14.8 million in 2007,' said Huang.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder - but so, it appears, is ugliness. A Chinese television company seemed to be striking a blow for the unsightly when it announced it would screen its own version of Ugly Betty.
But now 'Ugly Wudi' faces a backlash, with newspapers and internet users complaining that the star of the show is too good-looking for the role.
The story of a smart, kind but defiantly unattractive girl struggling through an appearance-obsessed world has proven international appeal. The Colombian telenovela quickly spawned remakes in Russia, Germany, India and the United States.
Hunan Television's version goes on air next week.
Liquid milk sold by three leading companies is contaminated with melamine, tests showed on Thursday, the day when the number of infant deaths caused by the chemical rose to four.
Less than a month from now, we will find out if China will maintain its attitude of greater openness with the foreign media. My bet is that it won't.
At the beginning of the year, China relaxed its rules on the foreign media to fulfill pledges for greater freedoms in the period around the Olympic Games. The measures lapse on Oct. 17.
If the old rules come back into play, this is what it means:
* Reporters will be required again to seek advance permission from the Foreign Ministry for any trip outside of their base, such as Beijing.
* And reporters will no longer be free to interview anyone who agrees to an interview request. Rather, interviews must be vetted by authorities.
Armed Somali pirates hijacked Wednesday a Hong Kong bulk carrier with 25 crew members, 24 of them Chinese, off the Somali coast, the Chinese embassy in Nairob confirmed.
The bulk carrier owned by Sinotrans of Hong Kong was en route from Tunisia to Pipavav, India when it was hijacked off the eastern coast of Somalia, the 14th of such seizure by the pirates in the past two months, said Andrew Mwangura, an coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP).
Besides the 24 Chinese, a Sri Lankan captain was also on board the vessel that was captured, Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
For starters, Stillman asked the professor, 'Does the Chinese nuclear weapons program have a prompt burst reactor?' ... Yang's answer: 'Of course.'
Stillman pulled out a map of Sichuan Province. 'Can you show me where it is?' He thought he already knew the answer, but much to his surprise, Yang pointed to a location off in the mountains, a considerable distance west of the known Chinese nuclear weapons facilities.
Stillman fired a third fastball, right over the plate: 'Can you arrange an invitation for me to visit that facility?'
'Certainly,' the professor responded...
Thus began a most remarkable unveiling of the Chinese nuclear weapons program, a deliberate disclosure of its nuclear crown jewels to a central player in the American nuclear intelligence community.
Ms. Curling later wrote me again: "The more I think about this now (that you've brought it to my attention again) this guy is definitely a media hog. It just doesn't make sense to me. How he would say that a reporter is mischaracterizing what he said when he was actively asking me to help him find work in the US. It just doesn't jive."
Three babies are now dead after drinking melamine-contaminated milk powder, China's Minister of Health Chen Zhu said here on Wednesday.
The third fatality occurred in southeastern Zhejiang Province.
1.3 billion Chinese people walk on the earth. In a few days time, one of them will walk in space.
Chinese space shuttle Shenzhou VI launch in 2005Unofficial reports on Chinese websites say that China has chosen Zhai Zhigang, a 42-year-old fighter pilot, as this country's first space walker.
Two brothers who sold about 3 tons of fresh milk to the Sanlu Group a day were arrested in Hebei province on Sunday because their product was adulterated.
Sanlu, a leading baby milk food producer, is in the grip of a scandal after its contaminated products have caused the death of two infants. Altogether, 1,253 infants across the country have been diagnosed with the ailment after drinking Sanlu milk.
Meng Xuenong, governor of north China's Shanxi Province, resigned from his post Sunday in the wake of the deadly mud-rock flow that had killed 254 people by Saturday night...
...Meng Xuenong, born in August 1949, is a native of Penglai, east China's Shandong Province.
He was elected mayor of Beijing in January 2003 and was removed from the post for failing to respond properly to SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in April the same year.
China's State Council, the Cabinet, has started the first-class national food safety emergency response to deal with the tainted Sanlu milk powder incident that has caused kidney stones in at least 432 babies.
The State Council has set up a national leading group comprising officials from the Health Ministry, the quality watchdog and local governments for the incident.
A preliminary investigation has confirmed the Sanlu baby milk powder contaminated by melamine was the cause of kidney stones in infants, said an official statement released here Saturday evening.