Chinese Man Killed Over Cellphone Video

Consumer spending is what China needs now: Wen Jiabao

(NEWSER) - China's premier today called on his countrymen to spend big to boost the national economy because international markets aren't up to the job. "Expanding domestic demand, particularly consumer demand, is essential to ensuring China's long-term, robust economic development, and is the focus of our economic work this year," Premier Wen Jiabao told the National People's Congress. To that end, Wen pledged greater support for health care, social security, jobs programs, and public housing to put more money in people's pockets, reports AP . The government will also back more paid vacations and greater consumer credit, he vowed. His address underscores a new government concentration on bolstering consumer spending in China rather than a focus on exports and low-cost labor. More»

Chinese employees take action against assembly line conditions

(NEWSER) - Close to 150 Chinese workers gathered on the rooftop of their Foxconn factory in Wuhan and threatened to leap to their deaths in a "suicide protest" against poor working conditions. The workers were talked down by the local mayor and company officials after spending two days on top of the three-story building. They were protesting a grueling new assembly line. "The assembly line ran very fast, and after just one morning we all had blisters, and the skin on our hand was black," a worker told the Telegraph . "The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it." More»

At least 30 detained, church member says

(AP) - Chinese police detained at least 30 Christians belonging to an unregistered Beijing church as the congregation gathered today for an Easter service, a church member says. Police stopped the worshippers from the unregistered Shouwang church as they gathered near a public plaza in the city's university district, then bused them to a local police station. The AP saw about a dozen people taken away but a church member says at least 30 were detained. More»

Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew domains, among others, will have support by 2010: ICANN

(NEWSER) - In the biggest change ever to the system, Web domains will soon be available in the native scripts of Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew, and other non-Latin-based languages. A proposal expected to be approved this week means “Internationalized Domain Names” could be up and running as soon as mid-2010. China and Thailand currently offer support for domains in their languages with non-standard workarounds, ZDNet reports. More»

(NEWSER) - Getting wasted is all part of the job for many Chinese bureaucrats, and it's becoming such a serious problem that it has led to illness and death, reports Reuters. Government officials are required to offer large amounts of alcohol at public functions and drink frequent toasts to honor guests. "We would lose face if we could not get our guests drunk. Refusing to drink is considered disrespectful," said one official. More»