On the last weekend of every month, government critics gather for unassuming meals in as many as 20 cities across the country to discuss issues from failures in the legal system to unequal access to education.
Media reports claimed that improvised explosive devices packed with metal ball bearings and nails and concealed in roadside flowerbeds were detonated at around 7:40 in the morning in Taiyuan, the capital of coal-rich Shanxi province.
The official Xinhua news agency said what appeared to be small-scale bombs went off outside an office building of the Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province.
From their website:
The Star Online is an information portal on the Internet. It was launched on June 23, 1995 as the Internet edition of Malaysia's leading English-language newspaper, The Star, but has since evolved - with added features and functions - to move away from merely being an online newspaper.
The son and grandson of scrap metalists, reporter Adam Minter traveled throughout the world to investigate how what we discard—and reuse—helps drive the global economy.
“China Story Yearbook 2013” contains a rich range of translated material from Chinese sources related to politics, social change, urban transformation, law and order, international relations, the economy, the Internet, major news stories and much more.
Authorities barred a planned protest to the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea last month involving activists from both the mainland and Taiwan, but the protesters are now eyeing another try next month, one of the activists said.
Directive from the Ministry of Truth to media: “New Express reporter Chen Yongzhou accepted bribes to publish a number of inaccurate reports. The media must use the full text of Xinhua News Agency wire copy regarding this incident, no exceptions.”
After nearly three decades of rapid urbanisation, China’s official and unofficial city dwellers outnumber its farmers. China’s urbanisation counts as the biggest and fastest social movement in human history, a movement that has turned Chinese society on its head and raises many difficult questions for policy makers. The design of China’s future cities will not only affect the health and well-being of their residents; it will also be an important factor in the battle to contain China’s soaring carbon emissions. How China urbanizes, therefore, is of high importance to all of humanity. If China is to become the sustainable society envisaged in the Twelfth Five Year Plan, it would be wise to look for models in such cities as Copenhagen, rather than such outdated models as Los Angeles.
This weekend, China’s leaders gather in Beijing for meetings widely expected to determine the shape of China’s economy, as well as the nation’s progress, over the next decade. What exactly the outcome of this Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will be remains shrouded in no small measure of secrecy, like most matters of high politics in China.
