A sandstorm blown by gusting winds has enveloped a huge area of central and northern China in thick pollution that is a hazard to people going outside.

The depletion of the Earth’s water resources continues apace, but we can take decisions and actions as governments, societies and individuals to address that, writes Yasmin Siddiqi.

Engulfed in choking smog, some northern Chinese cities limited the number of cars on roads and temporarily shut down factories today to cut down pollution during a national "red alert".

Frank McGlynn’s insight into Genghis Khan tells of man driven by vision and circumstance to take over most of the known world with brilliant and brutal efficency by Neil Robinson. 

Activity in China’s factory sector shrank at its fastest rate in at least three years in August as domestic and export orders tumbled, increasing investors’ fears that the world’s second-largest economy may be lurching toward a hard landing.

For many residents of China’s southern town of Yulin, the peak of summer is the perfect time to gather with family and friends, and consume copious amounts of dog meat.

Six children have drowned while ice-skating on a river in a rural area of northern China, a local government said Sunday.

Fourteen people have died after a stampede at a mosque in northern China.

A six-year-old Chinese boy whose eyes were gouged out in an attack more than three months ago was discharged from a hospital in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen yesterday where he was successfully fitted with prosthetic eyes.

Lenin’s Kisses

Mikhail Shishkin is a multi-award-winning contemporary Russian author, and this, his fourth novel, has already been hailed as a prodigious literary achievement.

Writer Ruth Padel, who opens West Cork Literary Festival this summer, is a direct descendent of Charles Darwin and is greatly inspired by science, she tells Carl Dixon

Everyone lucky enough to live in a democracy is encouraged to cherish their vote.

Protests against Japan for its control of disputed islands spread across more than a dozen cities in China and turned violent at times today, with protesters hurling rocks at the Japanese Embassy and clashing with Chinese paramilitary police before order was restored.

Thirty six people died when a double-decker bus rammed into a tanker loaded with highly-flammable methanol in northern China early today, causing both vehicles to burst into flames.

A Chinese spacecraft carrying three astronauts has docked with an orbiting module where they will live and work for several days as part of preparations for crewing a permanent space station.

Good luck wishes go to China in its bid to establish a multi-billion dollar thoroughbred breeding and training facility, with Irish help.

At least 13 people have been killed and 43 injured in an explosion at a chemical plant in northern China.

THE Chinese are gearing up to celebrate their most important annual festival — Chinese New Year.

Two gay Chinese penguins have been given a baby penguin to look after.

Forty-five grimy, exhausted Chinese coal miners trapped by a cave-in were rescued today, ending a 36-hour ordeal in the world's most dangerous country for the industry. Eight other miners were killed in the accident.

A mentally disturbed man armed with an axe attacked children and parents in a city street in central China today, killing six people, local officials said.

JAPAN is starting to excavate the site of a former medical school that may reveal grisly secrets from World War II.

A RARE Siberian tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver in northern China while horrified passengers watched.

China has just been declared the world’s second biggest economy, and now it has a traffic jam to match.

At least 42 people died when a passenger jet overshot a runway in north-east China today and burst into flames.

Cinemas closed and coal miners stopped work as China observed a day of mourning today for more than 1,200 victims of a mudslide a week earlier in a north-western town, while the race to protect survivors from more flooding continued.

ENGINEERS battled yesterday to drain an unstable lake created by China’s deadliest landslide in decades, fearing it could burst and swamp devastated areas where people are still hunting for survivors.

Heavy rain hindered efforts by workers to repair reservoirs and place sandbags along breached riverbanks today as the death toll from China’s worst flooding in a decade climbed above 1,000.

An explosion at a coal mine in northern China killed at least 15 people.

An electrical fire inside a coal shaft in northern China left 28 miners dead, a government official said today.

TAIWANESE technology giant Foxconn, battling to stem a spate of factory suicides in China, said it was raising the pay of its Chinese workers by 30%.

Nine workers have been pulled to safety after spending more than a week trapped in a flooded coal mine in northern China, according to reports on state TV.

Rescuers were scrambling today to save 153 workers trapped after a flood swept through a coal mine in northern China, the country’s work safety agency said.

AT least 123 people were trapped underground yesterday after water gushed into a coal mine in northern China, a government agency said.

A dissident Chinese lawyer who was missing for more than a year suddenly resurfaced today, saying he is now living in northern China and wants only to spend time with his family away from media attention.

It has been reported that at least 152 people are trapped after a coal mine flooded in northern China.

A disgruntled employee in northern China killed nine people and injured 11 others in a hit-and-run crash while fleeing after stabbing a co-worker, local government officials said today.

Rescuers evacuated thousands of rural residents from north-west China after extreme cold and blizzards killed four people and left half a million snowed under.

China has ordered rotating closures of hundreds of factories to save power as demand surges amid bitter winter cold.

A FREEZING front swept over much of northern China yesterday with snowstorms snarling new year traffic and air travel, and some of the lowest temperatures in decades are forecast for the next few days.

Hundreds of workers in northern China are battling to contain an oil spill that has left a 20-mile (33-kilometre) stretch of river polluted with diesel.

THIS decade is on track to become the warmest since records began in 1850, and 2009 could rank among the top-five warmest years, the UN weather agency reported yesterday on the second day of a pivotal 192-nation climate conference.

The confirmed death toll from a gas explosion that tore through a coal mine in northern China has risen to 42 dead with 66 people still trapped in the mine about a third of a mile underground.

A gas explosion tore through a coal mine in northern China today, killing 31 people and trapping 82 others nearly a third of a mile under ground, government authorities said.