Worldcrunch
BEIJING – Since 2010, China’s number one state-owned newspaper, the People’s Daily, has published quite a number of commentaries concerning hot-button social issues. We are very pleased and applaud this. In general, these commentaries have a higher purpose and discuss national issues with sharpness. Recently, though, the People’s Daily published a commentary written by Bai […]
SOUTH METROPOLITAN DAILY (China) Worldcrunch LIANJIANG – A Chinese centenarian woke up after being dead for 16 hours, reports the South Metropolitan Daily. Peng Xiuhua, a 101-year-old woman from Shenshuidong Village in China’s southeastern Guangdong Province, had been living alone since the death of her husband 11 years ago. She had taken a fall two […]
BEIJING – French Minister of Economy Pierre Moscovici was recently in Beijing to convince Chinese officials that the French debate over the transfer of the nuclear technology to China was nothing to worry about. “We are discussing the way the strategic clauses will be applied in regard to technology transfer and intellectual property,” said Moscovici. […]
Two decades after the Sicilian Mafia killed magistrate hero Giovanni Falcone, crime networks have shifted drug trafficking from bases to Russia, Colombia, Burma…and beyond.
Some 1.2 million were forced to relocate by China’s massive Three Gorges project. Moving to unfamiliar land, many of these internal migrants struggle. Some tell another story.
GLOBAL TIMES, XINHUA (China), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch PYONGYANG – For the second straight day, North Korea has lashed out at its enemies, raising the stakes in the showdown over its nuclear program by warning Friday that new UN economic sanctions would amount to a “declaration of war.” The KCNA North Korean news agency, relayed a […]
BERLIN – Chinese censors have made some significant changes to several parts of the latest James Bond film “Skyfall.” One scene, showing a French hitman killing a Chinese guard in a Shanghai skyscraper, was cut out entirely. So was a mention of prostitution in Macau. Other changes are reflected in the subtitles. In the original […]
“Behind the closet are those wives imprisoned in an unhappy marriage…” A Chinese woman used her personal blog to describe life as the wife of a gay man, before her husband decided finally to come out. According to a report conducted in 2005 by Liu Dalin, a prominent sexologist, 90% of Chinese homosexual and bisexual […]
MADRID – Spanish has become the most spoken language in the world after English – in real life as well as on social networking sites. It is the second most used language on Twitter, after English, ahead of Portuguese and Japanese. These findings were presented in Madrid last week by the head of the Cervantes […]
XINHUA (China), LIANHE ZAOBAO (Singapore), CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY (Taiwan) BEIJING – China’s new leaders have adopted new measures to cut back on government perks and outright corruption, but there’s at least one sector of society that is not pleased: the catering industry. On Dec 4, the newly elected Politburo Standing Committee adopted eight measures to […]
-Essay- BEIJING – Recently, a fire killed seven children in a private orphanage in the Eastern Chinese town of Lankao. The woman who runs the Henan province orphanage, Yuan Lihai, called “Loving Mother” by locals, became a controversial figure overnight, even though she has cared for more than 100 abandoned children over the past 20 […]
BEIJING – A new study published by the National Academy of Economic Strategy (NAES) finds a global energy market that is in the midst of major changes. China, in this context, is facing both opportunities and challenges; in particular, there are concerns about China’s energy security brought on by shifts in the sector in North […]
Some skeptics, though, wonder whether all the enthusiasm for the developing world has created a sort of emerging market “bubble”.
AP, XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch ZHENXIONG – Chinese authorities have offered a rare apology after cremating the remains of 46 victims of last Friday’s deadly landslide, before even consulting with their families. The AP reports that Hu Jianpu, deputy dead of Zhenxiong county in China’s Yunnan province, told state broadcaster CCTV “We did that because we […]
CHITTAGONG – In the port of Chittagong, containers pile up like colorful cubes of sugar. Dozens of ships scurry down the estuary of the Karnaphuli, the river that winds around the economic capital of Bangladesh to finally stream down into the Bay of Bengal. The port is bustling. The newly built mooring container terminal (NCT) […]
The target year is 2020, and the subject on the minds of many world economists: the Chinese consumer. In a report published last month, “Consuming China: How to get ready for the next stage,” McKinsey & Company predict that consumption will replace investment as the driving force of China’s GDP growth. Meanwhile, Dong Tao, Asia […]
-Editorial- BEIJING – The ambulance was stuck behind a sea of cars. Even though its blue lights were flashing and its siren was blaring, no cars gave way. Instead they squeezed by skillfully, one after the other. The video, which captures perfectly how difficult it is for an ambulance to drive through the streets of […]
XINHUA (China), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch KUNMING – At least 40 people were believed to be buried in a massive landslide Friday morning in the Yunnan capital city, with 18 confirmed dead. The rescuers are still digging for survivors. Ten residential homes were crushed under tons of rubble and mud in this region of southwest China […]
BEIJING – In the history of Eastern and Western art, the aesthetic standards for painting have been more or less the same. The most esteemed paintings were large scenes with people in them. They can be broken down into the two categories, of either historical or religious nature. The classic scene of Christ being taken […]
Smuggled in from Burma and North Korea, meth is flooding Chinese mean streets.
URBAN TIMES, XINHUA (China), MING PAO (Hong Kong) Worldcrunch BEIJING – A top Chinese official announced on Monday that China would put an end to its controversial “Reeducation Through Labor” system. According to the Urban Times, addressing a meeting in Beijing, new Political and Legal Affairs Committee head Meng Jianzhu, said: “the use of Reeducation […]
BEIJING – At least 8,572 premature deaths occurred in four major Chinese cities in 2012 due to the high levels of fine particle pollution. This was the conclusion of a joint study called PM2.5: Measuring The Human Health And Economic Impacts On China’s Largest Cities carried out by Greenpeace and Peking University. Apart from the […]
CHINA MEDIA PROJECT, SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (Hong Kong), REUTERS Worldcrunch GUANGDONG– Journalists at the Chinese newspaper The Southern Weekly (also known as the Southern Weekend) have gone on a rare strike, claiming in an open letter that a New Year’s editorial calling for political reform and protection of individual rights was censored and re-written […]
-Essay- BEIJING – There has been a succession of dynasties in China’s long history, but Chinese culture has always followed the same basic ideology. This ideology is composed of ideas from three sources: the Book of Changes, Confucianism, and Taoism. Today, if we want to export the soft power of Chinese culture, we must first […]
BEIJING TIMES (CHINA) CHINA TIMES (Taiwan) Worldcrunch BEIJING – Over the last few days, China’s blogosphere has been heating up with spicy rumors that could stretch all the way back to Silicon Valley: a female director of the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC) has been accused of accepting gigolos as bribes from an American […]
Meet Captain Fu, who runs the Piraeus Container Terminal, which has been owned since 2009 by Chinese giant Cosco. So far, at least, business has barely been touched by the Greek crisis.
XINHUA (China) Worldcrunch ZHENGZHOU – A fire that broke out in a private orphanage in China’s central Henan province has killed seven children, according to local government officials. Four children were pronounced dead at the scene while three died in the ambulance. Another child is receiving treatment in a local hospital. Rescuers did not know […]
BEIJING – The official announcement came from Zhang Ping, head of China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission: the government would “speed up household registration reform” as part of its drive for urbanization of the rural population. Dubbed hukou, the household registration system dates back to the Mao era, and prevents […]
HAMBURG – When a Chinese customer with a lot of money buys a Ferrari, as soon as the salesperson hands over the keys, the fun can begin. When a Chinese with a lot of money buys a Steinway, the grand piano is delivered, placed in the living room – and then what? “Friends come over, […]
-OpEd- BEIJING – Despite strong opposition from the international community, North Korea went ahead with its planned use of a long-range rocket to launch a satellite. As the North Koreans were cheering the successful Dec. 4 launch, their longtime Chinese ally was in no mood for celebrations. North Korea’s missile and nuclear capabilities have been […]
XINHUA (China), VOICE OF AMERICA (USA), REUTERS Worldcrunch BEIJING – Chinese legislature has passed a law that includes mandatory real-name registration for Internet users, Xinhua reported on Friday. The new rules were announced by the official Xinhua news agency on Twitter: Rules approved Friday in China to enhance protection of personal info online and safeguard […]
BEIJING – The tale of Cao Tian, a wealthy real estate developer from the Western city of Zhengzhou, has captured the attention of many Chinese. But it’s not, as one might have imagined, for his business success or personal riches. It all started when Cao Tian first announced his intentions last year to run for […]
The struggle for power in Lumbini, Nepal as a Chinese group pushes a “mega project” to draw Buddhist tourists from around the world.
Chinese firms setting up shop on the African continent must do their homework on more than just strictly business conditions.
-Essay- BEIJING – Lately there seems to be a refreshing breeze blowing through China, which might even change the very essence of our “national conditions.” What are these Chinese “national conditions” anyway? They are many things – each uniquely Chinese. For instance, our tradition of “official-orientated consciousness.” We are accustomed to seeing large crowds at […]
DHARAMSALA – Sacrifice of life for Tibet. Under this scarlet red title, the giant poster displays photos of deceased Tibetans. The poster was put up on a steep road in McLeod Ganj, a village on the slopes of Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan government in exile, in northern India. The street leads to the Tsuglakhang […]
The end of the world is slated for this Friday, December 21, and Chinese restaurants are fully booked. They are promising a wonderful atmosphere and are dubbing the special evening the “Last Supper.” We can already imagine the hordes of young people who will spend the evening in a bar – downing alcohol to help […]
In Aesop’s Fables, the story about the race between the hare and the tortoise tells people that the rabbit’s complacency and the turtle’s perseverance resulted in an unexpected ending to a seemingly predictable contest. In the 21st century, will the economic race between China and India also offer similar twists and turns, notably because of […]
GLOBAL TIMES, XINHUA (China), THE GUARDIAN (UK), CNN (US) Worldcrunch Chinese authorities have arrested at least 101 people for spreading rumors about an impending apocalypse, the state-run news agency Xinhua reports. The 101 people arrested (including 37 in Qinghai and 34 in Fujian province in the east of the country, according to CNN) all belong […]
BEIJING – After the end of last month’s 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China seems to have witnessed a nationwide wave of corruption investigations against the rich and powerful. First several high-ranking officials from Canton were dismissed from their posts. Then it was the turn of Li Chungcheng, the Deputy Party […]