China’s multi-decade quest for rapid development has by all measures been a stunning success. However, this has not come without a few unintended consequences. The physical conditioning – or lack thereof – of 90s-generation youth has been called a “crisis.” Sun Yunxiao, author and deputy director of the China Youth and Research Center in Beijing,... Read more »
The Gini coefficient, a measure of wealth disparity, is one of those socioeconomic tools that the general public normally wouldn’t notice unless, oh, a country was publicizing its coefficient for the first time in 12 years. So it is in China, where officials on Friday announced that its index reached 0.474 in 2012 (with 0... Read more »
A man seeking overdue wages blew himself up on Friday at about 3:53 pm in Guangzhou, according to Xinhua. He died while injuring seven people. The incident happened in a residential community on Tianhe North Road.
Li Chengpeng, an investigative journalist, writer, and social critic with more than 6.65 million followers on Sina Weibo, is accustomed to publicity and controversy. But physical attacks? Surely someone as brash and influential as he knows that opinions present an occupational hazard, but it’s nonetheless disheartening to see someone — anyone — physically assaulted for... Read more »
We have an update on the Thursday showdown in downtown Changsha featuring a gunslinger and brick-wielder. As we initially suspected, it was the man with the brick who inflicted more damage, though to our surprise, both men are described as only suffering “minor injuries.” Global Times:
A landslide in the village of Gaopo, Yunnan province this morning has left at least 22 dead, a number that is expected to increase because dozens more are buried. Reports AFP:
Sad news out of "China's Florida" once again.
According to Jinyang Net, a three-year-old girl named Xu Lijia has died from brain failure as a result of head trauma in Qingyuan, Guangdong province. A 35 year-old female suspect surnamed Zeng from Huaihai, Hunan, the girlfriend of the girl's father, confessed to the crime; owing to the fact that she's pregnant, she has been released according to Chinese law and is free on bail.
Dai Peng, a reporter with Changsha’s Sanxiang Metropolis Daily, pretended to be a homeless mute on Monday evening to expose physical abuse in the city’s homeless shelters. He sort of got exactly the story he was after. Shanghai Daily reports that on Monday evening, Dai put on shabby clothes and waited at an intersection until... Read more »
At 10:50 am today, a shooting in Changsha, Hunan province left two men seriously injured, though only one of them from a gunshot. Preliminary reports are that a man surnamed Li, 42, was entangled in a debt dispute with another man surnamed Peng, 36. The two had a court-ordered deadline of today to resolve their differences.... Read more »
China may finally be reforming its frightening system of “re-education through labor” (RTL), according to state news agencies -- but to what extent? While state media initially reported Monday that the CPC Central Committee would be pushing through a proposal to end the system by 2013, officials quickly backpedaled and settled on “reforming” the system, according to China Digital Times.
