Small human creatures can be so very resilient. Four months ago, six-year-old Guo Bin (Binbin) had his eyes gouged out, possibly by his aunt, who then committed suicide. He got prosthetic eyes last month and flashed a pretty great smile. Now look at him, leaving Shenzhen's C-MER Dennis Lam Eye Hospital earlier today.
A foreigner who knocked down a woman with his motorcycle in Beijing on December 2 -- he's pictured above being grabbed by the victim -- apparently was working "without a permit" in Beijing and has been deported. Talk about escalating fast. Also, he had been driving the motorcycle without a license, so he was fined 5,000 yuan. Oh, and his father was deported as well for working without a permit. What did either of them actually do?
UK Prime Minister David Cameron arrived in Beijing yesterday to boost China-UK relations -- to "appease" Beijing, as Western media types would put it -- and to back a new EU-China free trade agreement. A few days before, on November 29, Cameron opened a Sina Weibo account, with the first message reading: "Hello my friends in China. I'm pleased to have joined Weibo and look forward to visiting China very soon."
For the second time three days, a pipeline ruptured in a Chinese city. On Sunday, it was a gas pipeline in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province that injured three people.
Spain, which recognizes universal justice -- meaning its court magistrates walk eternally with backs bowed under the burden of universal injustice, the weight of sadness -- issued a warrant on Tuesday for the arrest of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and four others "as part of a probe into alleged genocide in Tibet," reports AP and Al Jazeera.
The US will have a new ambassador to China in early 2014. Gary Locke, who has served in that role since July 27, 2011, said this morning that he will step down "to rejoin my family in Seattle." SCMP has the full text of Locke's statement.
If you haven't been following the story of Bloomberg vs. the New York Times, start here. That's NYT's article, built around an anonymous source within Bloomberg, claiming that Bloomberg editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler spiked a sensitive China story due to pressure.
One of O. Henry's most famous stories is "The Last Leaf," a tale of hope, perseverance, and sacrifice. In it, a young girl dying in a New York hospital believes that once the last leaf falls from a vine outside her window, it'll be time for her to go. "Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," her friend, Sue, tells her, but she believes it, and so, lying in bed, she counts down the leaves. Five. Four. Three. Two...
This morning, a series of explosions shook the provincial capital of Shanxi province, Taiyuan, not far from the Shanxi Province Communist Party Committee building.
Last Thursday saw the publication of the China Story Yearbook 2013, the second in an annual series published by the China experts at Australia National University's Center on China in the World. It was co-edited by the estimable Geremie Barmé and Beijing's very own Jeremy Goldkorn. Disclosure: I'm partial. I occasionally write for the China Story blog, but don't let that deter you. The yearbook is packed with insight and perspectives you won't find in commercial media, with gems that will prove invaluable to any China watcher.
Not a week after we learned about a Tibetan Mastiff that was brutally shot to death by armed officers, here's a story about two Tibetan Mastiffs shot -- with pistols -- and beaten -- with shovels -- by police officers and residents of a village in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province. NetEase has the story and pictures. Warning: pictures aren't pleasant to look at.
In the sizable annals of bad photoshop jobs, this one belongs in the first chapter. The picture you see above was taken in Ningguo, Anhui province, with reports saying that these four -- which include the city's vice mayor -- were visiting a 100-year-old woman.
Details are still being sorted out, but a jeep crashed into a crowd in front of the Tiananmen Rostrum around noon today, leaving three dead -- "a driver and two passengers," according to Xinhua. Tourists and policemen were reportedly also injured.
