Free Republic

When Anny Ku heard that there were coronavirus vaccines on offer in Yiwu, a city in China's eastern Zhejiang province, she traveled more than 600 miles (965 kilometers) for a chance to get the shot. Ku worked in Chile for more than 20 years as an importer and exporter, but she returned to her home in southern China earlier this year after the coronavirus pandemic worsened and a large number of cases appeared in South America. There had been no official announcement that a vaccine was available in Yiwu -- just a series of articles in local media -- but...

Chinese President Xi Jinping says that China must be on guard against nefarious religious influences from abroad. His comments over the weekend follow a tightening of religious space that has seen bans on the wearing of veils and beards in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang and the removal of church crosses in eastern China. “We must resolutely guard against overseas infiltrations via religious means and prevent ideological infringement by extremists,” Xi said at a Beijing conference on religions attended by top leaders, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. …

A Chinese province where authorities have forcibly removed hundreds of rooftop crosses from Protestant and Catholic churches has proposed a ban on any further placement of the religious symbol atop sanctuaries. The draft, if approved, would give authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang solid legal grounds to remove rooftop crosses. Since early 2014, Zhejiang officials have toppled crosses from more than 400 churches, sometimes resulting in violent clashes with congregation members. They have said the crosses violate building codes, but critics say the rapid growth of Christian groups have made the ruling Communist Party nervous.“The authorities have attached great...

Home schools emerged in many places of China today due to the parents' concern about the public education, the China Youth Daily reported Monday.A growing number of parents in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces are choosing to let their children receive an education at home rather than attend public kindergartens, primary, junior or senior middle schools.Some parents think their children cannot realize the happiness of learning, acquire useful knowledge effectively and master learning for a modern society through the current methods taught in schools. A recent seminar about launching home school projects was held by 21st Century Education Research...

<p>15 Feb -Our centre has learned that a massive riot broke out in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, over a traffic accident, resulting in bloody conflicts between public security officers and several thousand migrant workers who came from other parts of the country. The locality urgently mustered 1,000 armed policemen last night [ 14 February] to quell the incident, in which six police vehicles were smashed and 100 migrant workers were injured. At the moment, the Tongxiang City Public Security Bureau has arrested 20 migrant workers and verified the incident to inquirers.</p>

Thousands protest probe into teacher's death in China: report (Kyodo) _ Thousands of people, including high-school students, protested against what they claim was a botched investigation into a teacher's apparent suicide in eastern China's Zhejiang Province, Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported Friday. The protesters rejected the conclusion that Dai Haijing, 30, had fallen off from her residence on fifth floor to her death in August. Many believed Dai's husband, a prominent businessman surnamed Xie, was involved in her death, the paper said. It said the protest turned into a riot when police tried to disperse the protesters. The protesters...

8,000-year-old drill to make fire found in Zhejiang www.chinaview.cn 2006-02-21 17:54:57 BEIJING, Feb. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese archaeologists said that parts of an instrument to make fire, dating back to 8,000 years ago, have been found in east China's Zhejiang Province. The relics, made of bones and wood, were discovered at the Kuahuqiao Relics Site in Xiaoshan, Zhejiang Province, according to Qianjiang Evening News. Liu Zhiqing, a retired professor from Zhejiang University, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the relics were part of an instrument to drill wood to get fire. Some relics in strange shapes were unearthed...

BEIJING - Tensions caused by the growing gap between rich and poor in China risk a social meltdown within five years if left unaddressed, a government report warned yesterday. The report, commissioned by the labour and social security ministry, warned that the country is in a "yellow-light'' zone, the second-most-serious indicator of "social instability." "We are going to hit the red-light scenario after 2010 if there are no effective solutions in the next few years,'' said the report, carried in the state-owned China Daily. As if to bear out its warnings, police admitted rioting had broken out in a town...

Toxic waste sparks violent protest at China factoryMon Aug 22, 3:05 AM ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese protesters set fire to factory buildings and police cars in a clash sparked by toxic waste, police and residents said on Monday, the latest illustration of a growing wave of public dissent. Saturday's violence at the Tian Neng Battery Co. was also the third protest in the eastern province of Zhejiang in recent months caused by pollution, highlighting the environmental price of China's rise to become the world's seventh-largest economy. "It's very serious. There was a clash between protesters and the police. Some...

Tuesday July 19, 4:43 PM Angry farmers force closure of China plantBEIJING, July 19 (Reuters) - Chinese farmers have attacked a pharmaceutical plant and forced it to close, angered that its chemical waste was ruining their village's crops, polluting its river and harming their health, the factory and officials said. The Jingxin Pharmaceutical Company in Xinchang county in the eastern province of Zhejiang has been closed since July 4 when a group of villagers stormed it, a company statement said, giving no details of how many were involved in the siege. But a posting on a stock exchange online message...

Hundreds of villagers in eastern China riot against polluting factoryThursday ?June 30, 2005 Hundreds of Chinese villagers have marched on a battery factory which they say is poisoning their children and held 1,000 workers hostage, residents and officials said. About 600 people from Jianxia village in the eastern province of Zhejiang took control of the Zhejiang Tianneng Battery company and barricaded workers inside, resident Han Cheng told AFP Thursday. But a promise made Thursday afternoon by factory managers to stop production and carry out investigations helped defuse the tense five-day standoff. "The problem has been more or less solved this...

Villagers Riot in China, 50 Police Said Hurt Mon Apr 11, 6:11 AM ET By Benjamin Kang LimBEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of villagers rioted in eastern China, injuring dozens of police, after two of about 200 elderly women protesting over factory pollution died during efforts to disperse them, residents and officials said on Monday.   The rioting on Sunday in Huankantou village, Dongyang city, in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang coincided with violent anti-Japanese protests in China's capital, Beijing, and the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen over the weekend. It was the latest in a string of outbreaks...

BEIJING, Feb. 28 -- Zhejiang Golden Eagle said Friday that a charitable body launched by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and his wife had bought into the Shanghai-listed textile maker, the second time the Gates foundation making investments in the A-share market on the Chinese mainland. The Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province-based Golden Eagle said in its 2004 financial statement that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had owned 607,040 shares as of the end of December 31 to become its fourth-largest shareholder. The Golden Eagle purchase followed earlier announcement by Shanghai-listed water utility Nanhai Development Co. that the Gates foundation...

TAIPEI - Proposed Chinese legislation that would give a mandate for the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland would provide a legal basis for an attack on the island, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has said. Mr Chen, speaking for the first time on the mainland's proposal to adopt a reunification law, said he was very concerned about it. 'China is undertaking a legal battle. If Taiwan does not follow, it will undertake a military battle,' he was quoted by the United Daily News as saying during a visit to the southern county of Tainan late on Thursday. 'The reunification law...

Below are some articles on the poisoning case in China. Latest reports in Chinese language media are almost 250 are dead with 1000 posioned. And posioning has taken place in two other places. They think wells were laced with very strong rat poison. ____ South China Morning Post September 16, 2002 SECTION: News; Pg. 7 LENGTH: 482 words HEADLINE: Residents recall horror of tainted-breakfast tragedy while looking after sick family and friends Sorrow engulfs poison-case town BYLINE: Josephine Ma BODY: Tangshan town residents yesterday struggled to come to terms with the deaths of mainly schoolboys in the Nanjing food poisoning...