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Wall Street Journal
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Jul 7, 08 2:53 PM CDT
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With gold prices hovering around $1,000 an ounce, one Hong Kong jeweler is melting down the shining palace he spent a decade building, unloading chandeliers and armored knights—everything but his 24-karat toilet, the Wall Street Journal reports. "I don't care if gold hits $10,000 an ounce," Lam Sai-wing says of the Lenin-inspired commode. "I'm not melting it down."
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Associated Press
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Jul 7, 08 8:11 AM CDT
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Kentucky bourbon is popular in the likes of Russia and China as drinkers worldwide flock to the US drink, the AP reports. A weak dollar, rising exports, and a bourbon trend among young Americans are also fueling the boom. "Younger consumers are interested in drinks that were, you might say, their grandfathers' drinks," said Max Shapira, president of Heaven Hill Distilleries in Kentucky.
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Times (UK)
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Jul 7, 08 2:35 AM CDT
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The Chinese government has jailed more than 1,000 monks in an effort to prevent protests during the Olympic Games, reports the Times of London. Three large monasteries are empty near Lhasa, where hundreds of monks and supporters held protests amid gunfire in March. The government is holding the monks—many of them young ethnic Tibetans—in nearby prisons and detention centers, according to sources.
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Miami Herald
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Jul 5, 08 3:59 PM CDT
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Cuba has rebuilt its spy network in Florida to its highest level in 10 years, a US Army expert on Cuban agents tells the Miami Herald . The FBI rounded up more than a dozen spies in 1998, but they have all been replaced, bringing Florida’s spy population to around 210, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons said. His revelation is the first in recent years by a US official on Cuban spies.
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New York Times
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Jul 5, 08 11:19 AM CDT
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China’s Olympic baseball team, under the guidance of an ex-Major League manager, has some hurdles to jump in its first Olympics. After Mao Zedong banned the Western sport in China, it never drew many fans–so the team uses second-rate facilities and generally faces overwhelming odds against other teams. But the big leagues have spent millions to push the sport in China’s huge market, the New York Times reports.
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Radio Free Netherlands
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Jul 5, 08 8:39 AM CDT
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The Chinese call them liaobaixing , or "old 100 names," and they are so partial to those 100 traditional surnames, Radio Free Netherlands tells us, that over 90% of the country's population of 1.3 billion share them. The profusion of Wangs, Chen, Lis and Wus creates powerful feelings of kinship, but also wreaks bureaucratic havoc.
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New York Times
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Jul 5, 08 7:17 AM CDT
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Federal officials are proposing to loosen accounting regulations, allowing American companies to shift to international standards that offer more latitude in reporting earnings, the New York Times reports. The move would make businesses more competitive, the administration argues, but it would also effectively exempt them from the investor-protection measures instigated after the collapse of Enron, critics note.
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New York Times
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Jul 4, 08 4:45 PM CDT
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These days China feels "both older and newer than any place on the planet," writes New York Times art critic Holland Cotter. And nowhere is that tension more palpable than in the country's museums, which use antiquities from the millennia-old civilization in service of a rising world power. In a trip across China, the critic discovers a different approach to museum display.
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BBC
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Jul 4, 08 6:16 AM CDT
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Commercial flights between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan resumed today for the first time in 60 years, with simultaneous flights landing at the Taipei and Shanghai airports, the BBC reports. China Southern Airline's chairman described the first flight to land in Taipei as "a sacred moment." The agreement to reopen the route, weekends only, is the result of improved relations across the strait since Taiwan's new president, Ma Ying-jeou, took office in May.
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New York Times
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Jul 4, 08 3:27 AM CDT
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The White House has confirmed that President Bush will attend the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics—and he's likely to have plenty of seats to choose from in the VIP box, reports the New York Times . Brit Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not be in attendance. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was withholding his decision until after progress in ongoing Tibet talks—but now Chinese officials have told him not to bother.
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Associated Press
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Jul 3, 08 2:17 PM CDT
(AP) -
Venus and Serena Williams won in straight sets today to set up their third all-sister Wimbledon final and seventh Grand Slam championship matchup. Defending champion and four-time winner Venus beat Elena Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 (6-3), then two-time champ Serena overcame two rain delays and served 14 aces to down China's Zheng Jie 6-2, 7-6 (6-5).
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Christian Science Monitor
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Jul 2, 08 8:51 PM CDT
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China officially sanctions religious worship only at state facilities, but the Christian Science Monitor finds that plenty of wiggle room exists in the business world. It profiles one company whose Christian CEO is allowed to put up a church at every worksite. Why such accommodation in a formally atheist state? The company, SMIC, makes semiconductors, an area of production China is desperate to increase for its domestic electronics industry.
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Chicago Tribune
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Jul 1, 08 3:12 PM CDT
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Looking like a tricked out motorbike, the Uno is electric personal transportation with style, the Chicago Tribune reports. Designed by 19-year-old inventor Ben Gulak, the device employs no throttle or brake, relying on its rider's leanings to guide it, and is so intuitive an 8-year-old picked it up instantly at a recent vehicle expo.
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New York Times
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Jul 1, 08 6:24 AM CDT
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In ruling that a Gitmo detainee has been improperly held for 6 years, a federal appeals court deemed the government's standard of evidence on par with an absurdist poem of the 19th century. The DC Court of Appeals voided the detention of Huzaifa Parhat last week, but yesterday it released the unclassified text of its unanimous decision, which contains sharp rebukes to the Bush administration and the Pentagon, reports the New York Times .
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