Tag Archives | China

Chinese Man Who Stabbed 23 Children Was Inspired By Mayan Doomsday Rumors, Authorities Claim

By on December 18, 2012 in News 5

Is the possibility of a looming apocalypse causing people to lose it in horrific fashion? Via the Christian Science Monitor:

Chinese police said that they suspect that the man who stabbed 23 children in a rural Chinese elementary school just hours before the Newtown, Conn., massacre “injured innocent people and children with a knife because he was influenced by doomsday rumors.” None of the wounded children died of their injuries.

The knifing spree is the darkest manifestation yet of how end-of-the-world rumors have taken hold in China. Chinese are susceptible to doomsday reports, suggests social psychologist Wei Zhizhong, because “scientific knowledge is still not widespread in China. People have abandoned their traditional mystical relationship with nature, but they are still exploring scientific ways of coexisting” with the natural world.

… Read the rest

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Seven Sentenced To Prison In Case Of Teenager Who Sold His Kidney For An iPad

By on December 5, 2012 in News 5

Was it worth it? Shanghai Daily reports:

A surgeon and six others were jailed yesterday over their involvement in the case of a teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and iPad. He Wei, who organized the illegal transaction, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and Song Zhongyu, the transplant surgeon, was sentenced to three years with a reprieve of five years.

Wang Shangkun, a 17-year-old high school student from Anhui Province, agreed to sell one of his kidneys after he found the group through an online chatroom. His kidney was transplanted to a recipient in Chenzhou on April 28, 2011. Wang was given 22,000 yuan (US$3,529) and bought an iPhone and an iPad with the money. But he later suffered renal failure and told his mother what had happened.

Human organ trade and organ donations from living donors, except for close family members such as spouses and blood relatives, are illegal in China.

… Read the rest

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They’ve Found Genghis Khan’s Tomb…Maybe

By on December 4, 2012 in News 1

Picture: Portrait of Genghis Khan, anonymosu court painter (PD)

A team of American and Mongolian scholars may have discovered the final resting place of one of history’s greatest warriors, Genghis Khan. The discovery, if confirmed to be true, could prove to be problematic for a variety of reasons. Khan is still revered in Mongolia, and disturbing his tomb in the name of science would upset many Mongolians. The Chinese government fear that the site could be a touchstone for troublesome political action.

Via Daily Beast:

Altan Khuyag, a 53-year-old herder and forest ranger, offers us a cup of warm milky tea, insisting that we stay the night, in a typical display of Mongol friendliness. Among the nomads, reciprocal hospitality is a vital part of life on the steppe. When I ask about Genghis, he dips his ring finger into a bowl of vodka, flicking a drop to the sky, towards Tengri, the god of the blue heaven.

… Read the rest

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Engraved Stone Discovered in China May Suggest Complex Language Existed 30,000 Years Ago

By on December 3, 2012 in News 3

Picture: "The Tower of Babel" by Bruegel the Elder (PD)

An artifact unearthed in north China may suggest that complex language systems may have existed in the area as early as 30,000 years ago. The item is a stone engraved with a series of lines deliberately carved by human hands. Dr. Fei Peng, a postgraduate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences had this to say concerning the stone, as well as an ostrich egg bead also discovered at the site:

Via Sci-News:

“Furthermore, creation of such an engraved object may indicate the possible existence of complex communicative systems such as language,” he said.

“In addition to the engraved stone artifact, one ostrich egg bead was unearthed from Locality 1. The lithic assemblage of this locality includes blade production and elongated tool blanks. The blade technology was probably introduced from the Altai region of Russian Siberia, according to comparison between lithic assemblages.

… Read the rest

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Kung Fu Nuns Teach Cosmic Energy To CERN Scientists

By on November 19, 2012 in News 6

Sounds like the plot line of a new movie from RZA … via Reuters:

A dozen kung fu nuns from an Asian Buddhist order displayed their martial arts prowess to bemused scientists at CERN this week as their spiritual leader explained how their energy was like that of the cosmos.

The nuns, all from the Himalayan region, struck poses of hand-chops, high-kicks and punches on Thursday while touring the research centre where physicists at the frontiers of science are probing the origins of the universe.

“Men and women carry different energy,” said His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, a monk who ranks only slightly below the Dalai Lama in the global Buddhist hierarchy. “Both male and female energies are needed to better the world.”

This, he said, was a scientific principle “as fundamental as the relationship between the sun and the moon” and its importance was similar to that of the particle collisions in CERN’s vast “Big Bang” machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

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An Interview With China’s Digital Thought Police

By on November 8, 2012 in News 6

Via the Atlantic, insurrectory artist Ai Weiwei spoke to a member of the so-called “50-Cent Gang” — the network of individuals paid by the Chinese state to sway public opinion in Internet forums:

The process has three steps – receive task, search for topic, post comments to guide public opinion. Receiving a task mainly involves ensuring you open your email box every day. Usually after an event has happened, or even before the news has come out, we’ll receive an email telling us what the event is, then instructions on which direction to guide the netizens’ thoughts, to blur their focus, or to fan their enthusiasm for certain ideas.

In a forum, there are three roles for you to play: the leader, the follower, the onlooker or unsuspecting member of the public. The leader is the relatively authoritative speaker, who usually appears after a controversy and speaks with powerful evidence.

… Read the rest

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China to Cut Prison Organ-Harvesting Programs

By on November 3, 2012 in News 0

Picture: Gray's Anatomy (PD)

Via Al Jazeera:

China plans to implement a new national donation system which will allow the government to phase out next year the practice of removing organs from executed prisoners to be used in transplant operations.

China’s health ministry said yesterday that a new national organ donation system is being developed after officials said using organs from death-row prisoners was neither ethical nor sustainable.

“Now there is consensus among China’s transplant community that the new system will relinquish the reliance on organs from executed convicts,” Wang Haibo told the World Health Organisation’s journal Bulletin.

“The implementation of the new national system will start early next year at the latest. This will also mark the start of phasing out the old practice.”

Wang was appointed last year by China’s health ministry to design a system to fairly and efficiently allocate organs to people who need them.

The new system has been run for two years by the Red Cross Society of China across 16 regions of the country.

… Read the rest

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Chinese Hospitals Introduce Hands-Free Automatic Sperm Extractor

By on October 4, 2012 in News 42

Chinese hospitals are introducing a new machine to extract sperm from donors: The device has a massaging pipe at the front which apparently can be adjusted for speed, frequency and temperature, among other variables, and it can be adjusted to the height of the user. The machine also has a small screen at the top to play movies in order to help with the “extraction process.”

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Don’t Panic, But China Mingles Its Nukes with Regular Missiles

By on October 2, 2012 in News 19

Picture: Flickr/Kate Haskell (CC)

This… erm… unsettling development comes out of the first comprehensive, non-governmental report on China’s nuclear warplans, written by John Lewis, a professor of Chinese politics at Stanford University.

via Benjamin Plackett at WIRED’s Danger Room:

It turns out that China’s been mixing its nuclear missiles in with its conventional ones at the same military bases. Not really, uh, advisable: that makes it really hard for other countries to figure out if a Chinese missile launch is just a conventional one or the beginnings of a nuclear Armageddon. But fret not — while China’s missile mingling may not be very sensible, it’s not going to cause World War III.

Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, John Lewis warns that the intermingling could trigger a nuclear launch: once another nation watched a Chinese missile blast off, it might trigger a nuclear retaliation from a confused, panicked Russia or United States.

… Read the rest

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Tensions escalate between Japan and China

By on September 28, 2012 in News 15

Tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands continues to escalate. A report from the Guardian states that both sides have refused to step back for fear of losing face.

 

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ben A. Gonzales (CC)

“There is a danger of China and Japan having a military conflict,” said Yan Xuetong, one of China’s most influential foreign policy strategists, and a noted hawk.

“One country must make a concession. But I do not see Japan making concessions. I do not see either side making concessions. Both sides want to solve the situation peacefully, but neither side can provide the right approach,” he added.

He warned that unless one side backs down, there could be a repeat of the Falklands Conflict in Asia.

 

This dispute over the islands began when Japan bought the islands in the East China Sea from their private owner.… Read the rest

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