SRINAGAR: Three persons, including two devotees, were killed and over 10,000 pilgrims stranded as heavy rains lashed parts of Jammu and Kashmir prompting authorities to suspend the annual pilgrimage to the holy cave shrine of Amarnath on Sunday."Heavy rains rendered
Ted Koppel has a new four-part series on the Discovery Channel about China called "People's Republic of Capitalism." From an AP report about the show:The series illustrates how dramatically China has changed in ways obvious and not-so-obvious, from the jumble
Chinese officials and thousands of volunteers are still struggling to clean up the thick, green algae that has floated into the Olympic sailing competition waters. Officials claim that the algae is naturally-occurring, but some volunteers point to factory pollution as
The Observer has an interview with iconoclastic artist Ai Weiwei:Ai Weiwei, China's most famous living artist, lives and works in Caochangdi, which used to be a village to the east of Beijing but is now, thanks to the city's endless
From The Financial Times:In the end it was a nagging feeling that the eyes had lost their iconic, melancholy look made German manufacturer Steiff realise that if you want top-quality teddy bears, China might not be your best bet.Before that
Mary Hennock and Melinda Liu report in Newsweek magazine:The Chinese phrase for "crisis" combines the words for both "danger" and "opportunity." That pretty much describes how the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that flattened parts of Sichuan also shattered parts of the traditional
The New York Times reports on a new competition between mainland China and Taiwan - over a ping-pong table:Outside, the tropical heat of southern Taiwan seems to wither even the palm trees, while inside, the players break into a sweat
The Guardian interviews six activists and dissidents including Ma Jian, Wan Yanhai, Li Fangping, Dai Qing, Dean Peng, and Woeser:Countless thousands of people in China are blacklisted, harassed, intimidated and locked up merely for what they say or because of
As part of his continuing series on China's cultural legacy, New York Times art critic Holland Cotter reports from Dunhuang on the state of the Mogaoku Buddhist cave paintings:Mogaoku is in trouble. Thrown open to visitors in recent decades, the
Sathya Sai Baba said: "I came across a tragic incident in a newspaper. It was about an uneducated and helpless mother and her three children. They were in such a pathetic state of poverty that the mother had to starve
Barry Pittard has written: "Some readers may be interested in unraveling the mass of Sathya Sai Baba's own confusions and contradictions (e.g., with regard to dates and details of characteristics of himself as compared to Shirdi Sai Baba), concerning his
Beirut/ Jerusalem- Israel has successfully tested a new defense system designed to intercept rockets fired from southern Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, public radio reported on Sunday.
Syrian authorities on Sunday blamed inmates for provoking riots in a prison for political detainees during which human-rights groups said at least 25 people were killed. The official SANA news agency said security forces took action to put down a
