At the Wolong Panda Reserve in China, keepers wear special costumes scented with panda urine and faeces to try to make the animals feel at home.
Chen Guangbiao, a famous Chinese businessman and philanthropist, has recently launched a line of canned fresh air collected from various parts of China and Taiwan. The product is called “Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy” and sells for about $0,80.
A villager in northern China attempting to resist a forced government relocation by remaining on his land was brutally crushed to death by a road flattening truck on the orders of a Chinese government official.
The story, which was censored in China’s state controlled media, has caused outrage amongst users of Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, given it’s horrifying similarity to what happened to student protesters who were crushed to death by tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
The victim, He Zhi Hua, refused to accept a paltry payment from the government which has forcefully evicted Changsha Village locals in order to re-appropriate their land for commercial use.
When Hua began a protest by lying down on the spot through which construction vehicles had to pass, the local Vice Mayor ordered workers for the state-owned company to murder Hua by driving over his body with a huge road-flattening truck.
Shocking images show Hua’s pulverized brains and his mangled body in the aftermath of the state-sponsored execution.
Fearing unrest if the story got out to a wider audience, the government sent in 200 men to keep angry locals at bay and hide the remains of the body. The man’s family was offered a sum of money in order to keep quiet about the incident.
Japanese Coast Guard vessels fired water cannon to turn away about 40 Taiwan fishing boats and eight Taiwan Coast Guard vessels from waters Japan considers its own on Tuesday in the latest twist to a row between Tokyo and Beijing.Leave Japan alone!
Japan protested to Taiwan, a day after it lodged a complaint with China over what it said was a similar intrusion by Chinese boats. Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply this month after Japan bought disputed East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from their private owner, sparking anti-Japan protests across China.
Taiwan has friendly ties with Japan, but the two sides have long squabbled over fishing rights in the area. China and Taiwan both argue they have inherited China's historic sovereignty over the islands.
Of course the face-kini simply reiterates the Chinese hatred for tans, especially on the face. But don't be fooled by the 'Chainsaw Massacre-esq' mask with matching bodysuit. According to Daily Mail, the factory-made Face-Kinis cost just 15 to 25 yuan (Rs 138) each. And the best part is they are also extremely effective at repelling insects and jellyfish.
Beggars at a religious festival in Nanchang, southern China, have been ordered to either stay in specially-built metal cages or risk being removed from the city, in an attempt to stop them from harassing visitors.
Seen in Shanghai's Baoshan district along Jiangyang North Road some time after 10am yesterday: A man unfurls anti-Japanese banners ("Defeat the Japanese devils!", "Japanese devils return home!") outside a Honda dealer, and sets fire to his own Honda Civic.
China’s most powerful military leader, in an unusual public statement, last week ordered military forces to prepare for combat, as Chinese warships deployed to waters near disputed islands and anti-Japan protests throughout the country turned violent.
Protests against the Japanese government’s purchase of three privately held islands in the Senkakus chain led to mass street protests, the burning of Japanese flags, and attacks on Japanese businesses and cars in several cities. Some carried signs that read “Kill all Japanese,” and “Fight to the Death” over disputed islands. One sign urged China to threaten a nuclear strike against Japan.And by way of background, Maps published in China and Taiwan in the 1960s clearly show the islands as Japanese territory. There was little interest in the islands until a geological surveys released in 1968 and 1972 reported their might be oil and minerals around the islands.
So on the one hand, we have companies guaranteeing each other's debt (loans), and on the other hand, we have companies buying excessive numbers of equipment, which they pay for with loans provided by the suppliers on condition excessive numbers are bought.
That equipment is then used as collateral to secure more loans. Large parts of these loans are then used to speculate in real estate markets. In both instances, and don't let's forget the overlapping ones where both schemes are combined, we are talking about absolutely virtual money. Are these incidents perhaps? I find that hard to believe in view of how Chinese society is organized: major profits will attract major attention, a pyramid of perfect dimensions.
Charles Ponzi, eat your heart out. You may have been a fine crook, but you never even dreamed of operating on this scale. When these guys are done, they’ll leave nothing but a shell of a country behind.
If Moyo's calculations are correct, we are in big trouble – which makes the central premise of her book, Winner Takes All, all the more arresting. Governments across the world, she writes, have singularly failed to grasp what's coming – with one sensational exception. "Simply put, the Chinese are on a global shopping spree." State-sponsored Chinese corporations are busy buying up commodities across Africa, North America, the Middle East, South America – anywhere they can – in a concerted strategy to seize control of resources before the rest of the world wakes up to the looming crisis. They're striking deals with what she calls the "axis of the unloved" – developing countries rich in commodities but poor in political and economic capital – in return for much needed investment, employment and infrastructure. Extravagant shoppers, the Chinese are happy to pay over the odds, treating their trading partners not as poverty-ridden charity cases nor political pariahs but valued commercial equals. But when the resources begin to run dry, the consequences will be catastrophic. Already, since 1990 at least 18 violent conflicts worldwide have been triggered by competition for resources. If nothing is done now, warns Moyo, commodity wars on a terrifying scale are all but inevitable.And this was 3 years ago:
Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Earlier, 10 Chinese soldiers armed with pistols checked in at the city's Holiday Inn along with 70 Zimbabwean troops.
One eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said: "We've never seen Chinese soldiers in full regalia on our streets before. The entire delegation took 80 rooms from the hotel, 10 for the Chinese and 70 for Zimbabwean soldiers."
Officially, the Chinese were visiting strategic locations such as border posts, key companies and state institutions, he said. But it is unclear why they were patrolling at such a sensitive time. They were supposed to stay five days, but left after three to travel to Masvingo, in the south.
China's support for President Mugabe's regime has been highlighted by the arrival in South Africa of a ship carrying a large cache of weapons destined for Zimbabwe's armed forces. Dock workers in Durban refused to unload it.
An investigative journalism programme which airs on Xi'an TV, has become a national laughing stock after airing a report on June 17 on a "mystery mushroom" which was discovered by villagers in a rural part of the city.
Residents of the Liucunbu village on the outskirts of the capital of the Shaanxi province say they came across a strange fungi-like object as they hit bedrock while drilling a new well. The perplexed villagers decided to call up their local TV station for help, which sent intrepid reporter Ye Yunfeng to their sleepy little hamlet to get down to the bottom of things.
One villager who was there during the fateful discovery of the unidentified object tells the reporter, "When we dug down to about 80m deep, we fished out this long, fleshy object. It's got a nose and an eye, but we have no idea what it is!"
"Even our 80-year-old neighbour here says he has never seen anything like this before," he adds.
Reporter Ye then begins to describe the curious object as the camera pans in on it. "As we can all see, this looks like a type of fungus, on both ends of which you'll find mushroom heads."
"On this side, you can see what looks like a pair of lips," she adds. "And on that side, there is a tiny hole which extends all the way back to this side. The object looks very shiny, and it feels really fleshy and meaty too."
"I've done my own research on the internet," says the afore-mentioned villager. "It's a type of lingzhi mushroom, called the taisui." [Editor's note: Taisui refers to 60 celestial generals named in the Chinese zodiac.]
Without skipping a beat, reporter Ye chimes in with her own research, saying this type of lingzhi is generally found in the Shaanxi region deep underground and is hence rarely seen. "When the Emperor Qin Shi Huang was on the hunt for the secret to longevity," she elucidates, "it is said he discovered this lingzhi was the answer."
Eagle-eyed viewers who saw the report on Sunday immediately identified the mystery mushroom as a double-headed masturbation toy with an artificial vagina on one side and an artificial anus on the other. Yes, you read that right, it was a jack-off aid that some guy used to spank his monkey when he wasn't getting it from his wife.
One very enterprising street cleaner who makes additional income by hawking things off the street is now passing off artificial vajayjays as the long lost magic mushroom, and selling them for as much as 18,000RMB (US$2,800)!
He even has a highly authoritative sales pitch playing off his laptop on loop -- the Xi'an TV news report which has since gone viral all over the world.
When one "prospective buyer" questions the man about the veracity of the report, he answers matter-of-factly, "It's on the news. How can it be fake?"
Pointing to the cheapest taisui available which is labelled "young mushroom" and going for a very affordable 800RMB, the buyer fails to contain his laughter as he asks the seller how old the mushroom is.
"About ten years old," came the response.
"Why doesn't it have an 'eye' then?"
"That's because it hasn't matured fully," replied the seasoned salesman. "Once it's fully grown, it'll have the 'eye'."You know, I half-way expect that mantyhose salesman to stop by and call me closed-minded and ignorant for bringing this to light.
Chen says he now wants to leave China as soon as possible: “My fervent hope is that it would be possible for me and my family to leave for the U.S. on Hillary Clinton’s plane.”Does anyone else think 70's porn star when they see this guy?
Hollywood actor Christian Bale was roughed up by Chinese security guards as he tried to visit a blind legal activist whose detention has sparked international outcry.
Bale, joined by a camera crew from CNN, was confronted by four men dressed in plain clothes as he tried to visit Chen Guangcheng who has been under house arrest in the Dongshigu village for 15 months.Uh...Okay, he brings a CNN camera crew with him? I see this was purely a matter of principle for Mr. Bale. Not some hollywood photo-op. It has nothing to do with Bale's new Batman movie coming out soon.
'Why can I not visit this free man?' Bale can be heard repeatedly asking the security officers, while they were pushing him.Yeah you flaming retard, that's because he's not free. He's in CHINA, and HE'S UNDER HOUSE ARREST. China + House Arrest = Not Free
For the first time on record, the Chinese Communist party has lost all control, with the population of 20,000 in this southern fishing village now in open revolt.
The last of Wukan’s dozen party officials fled on Monday after thousands of people blocked armed police from retaking the village, standing firm against tear gas and water cannons.
Since then, the police have retreated to a roadblock, some three miles away, in order to prevent food and water from entering, and villagers from leaving. Wukan’s fishing fleet, its main source of income, has also been stopped from leaving harbour.
The plan appears to be to lay siege to Wukan and choke a rebellion which began three months ago when an angry mob, incensed at having the village’s land sold off, rampaged through the streets and overturned cars.
Although China suffers an estimated 180,000 “mass incidents” a year, it is unheard of for the Party to sound a retreat.Read the rest...
China will consider turning to the Seychelles as a resupply port for navy ships taking part in anti-piracy operations off Africa, official media said, rejecting suggestions this would amount to a military base that could unsettle the region.
Chinese ships participating in a multi-nation campaign against pirates striking out from Somalia have already used ports in Djibouti, Oman, and Yemen to repair and to take aboard supplies, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
A resupply port in the Seychelles, an island country in the western Indian Ocean 1,600 km (1,000 miles) off the African coast, could raise concerns in India, which has been wary of China's growing military reach.Meanwhile, just this past week...
China's navy should speed up its development and prepare for warfare, President Hu Jintao has said.
He told military personnel they should "make extended preparations for warfare".
China is locked in territorial disputes with several other nations in the South China Sea. Political tension is also growing with the US, which is seeking to boost its presence in the region.You know those good ol' boys from the American south, that disproportionately fill the ranks of our military? The ones that will fight to the death for this country? Well...the Chinese have those same types. By the billions!
As a prisoner at the Jixi labour camp, Liu Dali would slog through tough days breaking rocks and digging trenches in the open cast coalmines of north-east China. By night, he would slay demons, battle goblins and cast spells.
Liu says he was one of scores of prisoners forced to play online games to build up credits that prison guards would then trade for real money. The 54-year-old, a former prison guard who was jailed for three years in 2004 for "illegally petitioning" the central government about corruption in his hometown, reckons the operation was even more lucrative than the physical labour that prisoners were also forced to do.
"Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour," Liu told the Guardian. "There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. We didn't see any of the money. The computers were never turned off."
Memories from his detention at Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province from 2004 still haunt Liu. As well as backbreaking mining toil, he carved chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood until his hands were raw and assembled car seat covers that the prison exported to South Korea and Japan. He was also made to memorise communist literature to pay off his debt to society.
But it was the forced online gaming that was the most surreal part of his imprisonment. The hard slog may have been virtual, but the punishment for falling behind was real.
"If I couldn't complete my work quota, they would punish me physically. They would make me stand with my hands raised in the air and after I returned to my dormitory they would beat me with plastic pipes. We kept playing until we could barely see things," he said.Read the rest
In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.
The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week's China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USa to “respect Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.Yet we're still giving Pakistan money.
U.S. military officials and geologists have discovered mineral deposits in Afghanistan potentially worth over $908 billion, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.
Vast supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold, all with worldwide technological applications.Meanwhile...
Indian intelligence agencies now have credible evidence of their own that several hundred of the Chinese working in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are People's Liberation Army engineers. They are in the process of verifying if these Chinese military engineers are engaged in some sort of military construction like bunkers.
The startling confirmation that hundreds of Chinese military engineers are in PoK has come against the stout official denial by China that its military was not present on the Pakistan side of Kashmir. In the past, US intelligence has told India about Chinese military presence in PoK.
Xinwen lianbo, or News Broadcast, on China Central Television, comes under fire again for its report of an air force training exercise on January 23. In the newscast, the way a target was hit by the air-to-air missile fired by a J-10 fighter aircraft and exploded looks almost identical to a cinema scene from the Hollywood film Top Gun.
A net user who went by the name “刘毅” (Liu Yi) pointed out that the jet that the J-10 “hit” is an F-5, a US fighter jet. In Top Gun, what the leading actor Tom Cruise pilots an F-14 to bring down is exactly an F-5. Looking at the screenshots juxtaposition, one cannot fail to find that even flame, smoke and the way the splinters fly look the same.
On the left are screenshots of CCTV News; on the right are screenshots of Top Gun.
Take a look at this video, from March 24, where Michelle Bachman grills Geithner on the Constitutional authority for some of the stimulus actions. Pay attention at the 2:00 mark where she asks Geithner if he would categorically reject Chinese proposal to dump the dollar in favor of an international currency. Geithner says he would indeed categorically reject such a proposal.
Well, apparently, he was read the riot act by someone. Because the very next day he stated he was open to the idea proposed by China. From Politico:
Geithner, at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is "open" to a headline-grabbing proposal by the governor of the China's central bank, which was widely reported as being a call for a new global currency to replace the dollar, but which Geithner described as more modest and "evolutionary."Did you catch that? First he says he hasn't read the proposal, then he offers his interpretation of the proposal. How the hell is that possible? How do you interpret what you have not read? Geithner is a dangerous, dishonest liar!
"I haven’t read the governor’s proposal. He’s a very thoughtful, very careful distinguished central banker. I generally find him sensible on every issue," Geithner said, saying that however his interpretation of the proposal was to increase the use of International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights -- shares in the body held by its members -- not creating a new currency in the literal sense.
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