China Daily

A tornado killed three people and injured 38 in the northeast China province of Jilin, the China Daily said Wednesday.

BEIJING — China has widened the daily trading range for the yuan in another small step to liberalize its currency. The move, effective Monday, allows the yuan to rise or fall in a single day as much as 1%, double the previous limit. The effort signals a willingness by China to allow its currency to move with market forces. That could help appease trading partners who have long accused Beijing of keeping the yuan artificially weak to give its exporters an advantage over foreign competitors.

China wants its people to eat more rabbit and less pork, saying hare meat contains more protein than either pork or chicken, the China Daily said Sunday.

Who me, rich and powerful? China's official reaction this week to its latest milestone — surpassing Japan to become the world's second-largest economy — has been more modest than boastful. Rather than flaunting its newfound status, China, the world's most populous nation but still roughly 100th in per capita income, is going through contortions to show that it really isn't that successful at all. Since Monday, when Japan released economic data showing that its gross domestic product for the second quarter had slipped behind China's, Beijing has been trumpeting its shortcomings.

Crime has risen 50% in the first nine months of the year over the same period last year on China's national railways, the official China Daily said Tuesday.

China will comply with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, an agreement banning trade in new ivory, the China Daily newspaper said Saturday.

China will launch a geological survey satellite in mid-October, the official China Daily said Wednesday. It will be China's fifth satellite launch this year.

Widespread floods in northeast China have left more than 800,000 people homeless in the last two months and inflicted more than $1.5 billion worth of damage, the China Daily newspaper reported Tuesday. Earlier reports said at least 80 people have been killed since July by typhoons, hailstorms and floods in the worst affected provinces of Jilin and Liaoning.

Shanghai has set up its first viper farm, with room to raise 10,000 of the highly venomous snakes, the China Daily said Monday. The paper said the vipers' venom will be used for medical purposes and that the flesh will be eaten by residents of southern China, where it is a delicacy.

Floods have killed 654 people and forced 1 million people from their homes so far this year in China, the China Daily newspaper said Wednesday. The newspaper said that 7.24 million acres of farmland have been flooded and 700,000 acres of crops destroyed.

China says it has accumulated evidence that the riots that swept through Urumqi on July 5, killing nearly 200 people, were part of a coordinated attack, possibly by a group with an Islamist agenda. Security officials were quoted Monday in the state-run press as saying that surveillance videos showed women in long Islamic robes and head coverings issuing orders to rioters. One woman was said to have given out clubs.

China's navy will move faster to build large combat warships, next-generation aircraft and sophisticated torpedoes, its commander in chief said. The navy wants submarines with greater stealth capabilities, high-speed intelligent torpedoes, electronic weapons, supersonic cruise aircraft and long-range missiles with high accuracy, Adm. Wu Shengli told the official New China News Agency.

China signaled Wednesday that it may send warships to help fight pirates off the coast of Somalia, a sign of Beijing's increasing willingness to flex its military muscle. Although China has participated in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa, its navy has seldom left the Pacific region. The Global Times, a newspaper tied to the ruling Communist Party, called the possible deployment China's "biggest naval expedition since the 15th century."

BEIJING -- Now this is a road game. Never will a U.S. men's basketball team be farther from home, facing a team with a bigger home-court advantage, than in today's opener against China. Despite the fact the U.S. players are icons here, China's yearning for its own place among the world's powers attaches to its own basketball team, led by Yao Ming, its star of stars, the flag-bearer in Friday's opening ceremony. With basketball the No.

In brief comments on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, former President Clinton said that his fundraising relationship with a Chinese company involved in Internet censorship did not pose a potential conflict of interest for his wife's presidential campaign. Even though the Chinese Web firm, Alibaba Inc., recently carried a government-issued Internet "wanted notice" urging the arrest of Tibetan protesters, he said that he backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's tough words on China.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. When China seven years ago won the right to hold this summer's Olympics, the nation erupted in joy, confident it would finally receive the accolades it deserved as an emerging global power after a century of isolation and humiliation.

Two important films by one of China's most controversial directors have been approved for domestic release, an official newspaper said Monday. "Qiu Ju's Lawsuit," Zhang Yimou's new film about contemporary peasant life, plus his previous "Ju Dou" and "Raise the Red Lantern" will be shown nationwide beginning in September, the China Daily reported Monday. Approval of showing of "Raise the Red Lantern" had been announced in late June.

Rail Investment to Be Pared by a Third: The government has cut its planned investment in railway construction this year to $3.3 billion, the official China Daily reported. China had originally planned to invest $4.8 billion to ease transport bottlenecks, the newspaper said. No reason was given for the cutback. In January, China moved to curtail investment in new construction projects to curb inflation, but it said infrastructure projects would not be affected.

Consider the tale of the jilted husband who exacted his revenge after his wife ran off: He charged into the shop that gave her a makeover and broke the beautician's fingers. Or the diner who speared his tongue with a hook while eating a fish head. The mysterious woman who only walks backward, the farmer whose savings were eaten by rats. And the spinster who frightens suitors with a strange demand: She wants to be buried together -- in the same coffin.

beijing -- China's state media on Monday welcomed U.S. toy maker Mattel's apology over its recalls of Chinese-made toys, saying that although overdue it should help restore the country's sullied export reputation. Mattel apologized in Beijing on Friday for recalling 21 million toys this summer, the majority of which had small magnets that could fall out and be harmful to children if swallowed. The company acknowledged the problem was a design flaw and not the fault of Chinese manufacturers.