Asia

Take a look at this poignant series of photographs from the Three Gorges over the last 5 years taken by multi-talented reporter Chua Chin Hon of the Singapore Straits Times.

Used to be that Aria in the China World Hotel was the favored spot for expense account types to have their power lunches. Move over Aria: the China Grill on the 66th floor of the newly opened Park Hyatt is taking over. The views alone are (almost) worth the very hefty price of entry. Above is a view of the CCTV Tower and the …

A gallery of photos by Ian Teh from the Sichuan disaster zone is now up here at time.com. It includes the above image of Zhang Kangqi, an official in Beichuan country who lost his wife and daughter in the May 12 earthquake. Here’s some more about Zhang from our six-month anniversary piece:

Zhang Kangqi lives in his office. Five feet

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Here’s a review for the curious of the 17-years-in-the-making Guns n’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy. The reviewer, our own esteemed Josh Tyrangiel (who also happens to run this website so no snarky comments, or at least not too many) doesn’t get into the merits of Axl Rose’s political commentary and we have already posted the lyrics to …

This spoof from the satirical site The Onion (www.theonion.com) requires some knowledge of American television, which used t feature (or maybe he’s still on; I haven’t seen the show in years) the avuncular Andy Rooney doing an ‘aw shucks, ain’t life strange’ set at the close of episodes of the legendary newsmagazine show 60 Minutes …

From Jyoti Thottam, here are a few more pieces about the meeting of Tibetan exiles in northern India that concluded over the weekend. She examines a young relative of the Dalai Lama who now backs full independence, preparations for succession after the Dalai Lama and the tougher message that emerged out of the summit.

Our colleague Jyoti Thottam reports from northern India where Tibetans are meeting to discuss the future of their movement:

The process may sound as worthy and bureaucratic as a conclave of some obscure United Nations agency. But as with any gathering of this size, the real action is happening informally, in the courtyards and coffee

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The Sichuan government is backtracking on an earlier announcement about the total number of students who died in the May earthquake. Previously the government had said that 19,065 students were killed. Now, as AP reports, a local official is clarifying that that number is the total number of dead who have been identified:

(BEIJING) — A

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Austin first noted the marvelous cache of LIFE photos now accessible through Google image search. (Link here, but be warned, once you start looking through the collection you’ll be there for hours) Spare indulgence for a few more, taken in Peking, as it was then, in the late 1940s as history, or at least the People’s Liberation Army, was …

Here’s a report from the current issue of the magazine that Lin Yang and I put together after a trip to Sichuan in October. We examine how a handful of survivors of the May 12 earthquake are now faring. A gallery of Ian Teh’s photos is forthcoming, and I’ll add a link when it’s posted.

On Friday Sichuan authorities finally revealed the …

The wires report today that China’s social security minister admitted unemployment is a critical problem (AFP report here). That this is being acknowledged publicly so soon says to me that the government is aware the situation is much worse already than has been reported, are trying to spin things a bit and lower expectations. That’s …

Here’s a postcard I wrote about the problems recyclers in Beijing are facing due to the falling value of scrap metal, paper, plastic and so on. When I ask the junk men in my neighborhood how business is these days, they all complain about low prices and the blame the U.S. financial crisis. Yet another unexpected repercussion of globalization.