CHINA BUSTED FABRICATING STORY ABOUT ROCKET LAUNCH: STORY DESCRIBING LAUNCH HITS THE NEWS BEFORE ACTUAL LAUNCH

You just can't trust the Chinese. 10 year old gymnasts and now this:

A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.

The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down.

A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a "technical error" by a technician. The staffer refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.

The arcticle, dated two days from now on Sept. 27, vividly described the rocket in flight, complete with a sharply detailed dialogue between the three astronauts.

Excerpts are below:

"After this order, signal lights all were switched on, various data show up on rows of screens, hundreds of technicians staring at the screens, without missing any slightest changes ...

'One minute to go!'

'Changjiang No.1 found the target!'...

"The firm voice of the controller broke the silence of the whole ship. Now, the target is captured 12 seconds ahead of the predicted time ...

'The air pressure in the cabin is normal!'

"Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean."

And how many people around the world bought their stories about Tibet?

NASA VIEWS OF EARTH

Cool stuff.

An eruption of Cleveland Volcano in the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, which lasted only hours, was captured by an Expedition 13 crew member in 2006.



Aurora Borealis and lights shine over Finland, Russia, Estonia, and Latvia in 2005.



Nukuoro Atoll is one of 607 islands that make up the Federated States of Micronesia, as shown in this 2006 photo. About 900 people live on this atoll, whose lagoon is less than 4 miles wide.



Find more here.

CHINESE SPACE AND CYBER THREAT IS GROWING

And on top of all this, they pour pee pee in your Coke.

The U.S. military painted China on Tuesday as posing a growing threat to the United States and others in space and cyberspace.

China is "aggressively" honing its ability to shoot down satellites along with other space and counter-space capabilities, said Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command.

Such know-how has big implications for Beijing's potential to curb access in the Taiwan Straits "and well beyond," he told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally created advisory group.

Horne, deputy head of the Strategic Command's joint component for space, said recent Chinese People's Liberation Army writings suggested China might target an enemy's spy satellites along with navigation and early-warning spacecraft "to blind and deafen."

Beijing deems the self-ruled island of 23 million people a breakaway province to be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary.

Horne said United States must "proactively protect our space capabilities."

SEARCHING CYBERSPACE FOR THE NEXT TERRORIST ATTACK

Armed with fluent Arabic and fake identities, members of Terrogence Ltd, scour the Internet for signs of the next Islamist attack. Staff members are are all former Israeli army intelligence analysts that decided to put their army skills to work.