DEVELOPMENT: Chinese Step In, Efficiently

For Jany Chen from Shanghai, concern often-raised in Europe and North America about the Chinese invasion of Africa is a lot of wasteful talk that deserves to be flushed down the toilet. Efficiently.

CHINA: Click Your Kidney Away

In China, where a growing demand for organ transplants coupled with a dramatic shortage of donors has fuelled a rampant black market trade, selling your organs for cash is a mouse click away.

After Osama, China Fears the Next Target

The United States' most vilified terrorist foe has been dead only a week but China is already haunted by the phantom of the next big U.S. enemy. Almost simultaneously with the spread of the news of Osama Bin Laden's death in a covert U.S. operation in Pakistan, Chinese analysts had begun the guessing game of where Washington will focus its attention next.

Q&A: Translating Southern Successes Into LDC Solutions

"In South-South cooperation we are all partners," Josephine Ojiambo, ambassador of Kenya to the U.N. and president of the U.N. General Assembly High-Level Committee on South-South Cooperation, told IPS. "SSC specifically shies away from the donor-client relationship."

TAIWAN: East Asia May Get its First Woman President

Taiwan may become the first country in East Asia with a female head of state if opposition Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen wins the island country’s fifth presidential election next Jan. 14.

China Registers Rapid Growth – In Anxiety

Long considered a sign of weakness or a bourgeois indulgence, psychiatry is slowly entering the mainstream here, with a growing number of Chinese willing to talk through their problems with a therapist.

China Puts Its Mark on Malawi

Driving through Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, it is difficult to miss the imposing building under construction in the city centre. It's the country’s first five-star hotel, 90 million dollars worth of well-appointed rooms, a state-of-the-art conference centre and 14 opulent presidential suites.

More Economic BRICS in the Development Wall

As BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) leaders prepare for Thursday’s summit in the resort town of Sanya in China’s southern Hainan province, experts here say there are limits to how ‘political’ the grouping can get.

CHINA: Social Stability Puts Squeeze on the Rule of Law

There is no "Jasmine Revolution" in China, but the Chinese government might be creating the seeds for one through its elevation of social stability above the rule of law, some experts say.

Latin America’s Gaze Increasingly Turns East

On the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama's trip to Latin America, Washington's traditional role as "regional hegemon" is being reevaluated as its attention focuses on the Arab Spring and an emerging commercial competitor - China - focuses on the U.S.'s backyard.

CHINA: Sympathy for Japan Drowns Out Historic Hate

Despite deep historic tensions between the two Asian powers, a surge of sympathy has emerged among Chinese toward victims of last week’s earthquake and resulting tsunami in northern Japan, which has left an estimated 10,000 dead or missing.

Bloggers Track Down China’s Lost Boys

Peng Gaofeng spent three years looking for his abducted son, launching an Internet campaign that eventually drew 300,000 followers. Last month, Peng was reunited with his son, and the 34-year-old has vowed to help the thousands of Chinese parents who are still trying to find their missing children.

Eat Chinese, But Eat Safe

Despite a greater government effort to monitor food safety in the wake of high profile contamination incidents – including the 2008 melamine milk poisoning scandal that killed six infants and made 300,000 ill – the majority of Chinese still feel insecure about the food they eat.

China Learns to Live With Inflation

At Mr. Ma’s fruit and vegetable shop, located in a historic hutong alleyway a few blocks from the Lama Temple, the impact of China’s growing inflation is evident. In recent months, the prices of Mr. Ma’s products have soared. Eggs have gone from RMB 7 (6.5 RMB to a dollar) to RMB 10 per kilogram. Tomatoes have almost doubled. Cabbage has tripled.

CHINA: Men Becoming More Suicide-Prone

While new research indicates that China’s overall suicide rate has been in decline for the last two decades, some segments of the population – including urban males and the elderly – are increasingly likely to take their own lives, the result of breakneck social change in the world’s most populous country.

CHINA: Deaths Rise With Smoke

Five years ago China pledged to ban smoking in all indoor public places by January of this year. That promise remains unfulfilled and is today symbolic of the lack of progress made in the fight against tobacco use in China, where up to a million people die of smoking-related complications each year.

BURMA: China Stands Behind New President

China is throwing its weight behind Burma’s predicted political transformation from military rule to a supposed civilian government, deepening its strong economic ties with the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation some have described as Beijing’s "client state".

China and Brazil Inundate Latin America with Dams

The growing presence of Chinese and Brazilian capital in Latin America's energy sector is facilitating the construction of hydroelectric complexes, but is also the fuelling nationalist stances that are adding to the environmental criticisms of those major projects.

TAIWAN: Media Fights Propaganda Masked as News

A coalition of journalist and civic organizations is waging a campaign to rid the Taiwan media of government propaganda masquerading as news, and signs are that the campaign has taken "the first steps" towards victory.

CHINA: Children Cry Out for Protection

A growing number of reports in China’s state media have thrust the issue of child abuse into the national spotlight. Many young parents and teachers today have shifting attitudes about corporal punishment, but incidents of abuse are being reported across the country. Affected children are virtually unprotected under the law.

Three-Day Summit Cements US-China Frenemy Status

On the tail end of Chinese leader Hu Jintao's three-day visit to the U.S. capital, observers are cautiously pleased with what they see as a constructive summit between the two nation's leaders, but eager to see whether this week's promises will translate into tangible results.