Twelve six-month-old panda cubs enthrall visitors at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base in Sichuan Province. more ›

The activist group Free Tibet reported on Monday that a Tibetan man had been killed, and thirty others wounded, after police opened fire on protesters in the Sichuan county of Luhuo (also known as Drango or Draggo to Tibetans). It has now been revealed that the following day a separate protest in neighbouring county Seda (Serthar) resulted in at least one fatality, with as many as five claimed by various Tibetan media organisations. more ›

Chinese military forces are said to have opened fire on a group of protesting Tibetans, killing one and wounding 30 others, according to Free Tibet, an activist group campaigning for self-determination by Tibetans. The incident happened after a large gathering in Draggo (also Drango, or Luhuo in Chinese), some 600km westwards of Chengdu. more ›

Infrared cameras set up by scientists in Sichuan province, have caught on film for the first time a wild panda eating meat. The panda was observed in Pingwu county gnawing on the bones of a dead wildebeest for about two hours. It's not known, however, if the panda killed the wildebeest. more ›

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Hong Kong cinema legend Maggie Cheung (张曼玉) played celebrity fairy godmother recently, visiting disabled children at a child welfare facility in the Sichuanese city of Yibin (宜宾). The Macau-born actress (who has ancestral roots in Shanghai) played with the kids and helped them through their regular daily routine, as part of her role as the UNICEF Ambassador to China. more ›

A Tibetan activist group has released a video that purportedly shows the moment Palden Choetso, set herself on fire and burned to death in a widely publicised self-immolation protest in Sichuan on November 3. More here. more ›

To those who might think it inappropriate for us to introduce something so difficult to watch in their daily info drone, we'd argue that footage of Tsewang Norbu's self-immolation, the second incidence in 2011 after Phunstog of Kirti Monastery did so in March, is necessary to ensure the story of Tibet's political repression doesn't get lost in the global news cycle. more ›

China experienced two moderate earthquakes this morning. At 6:00am a 5.5 magnitude earthquake hit the border area between Sichuan and Gansu province. Only a few hours later, Yining, Xinjiang province also experienced a 5.4-magnitude earthquake at 8:21am (revised down from an earlier magnitude reading of 6.0.) While no injuries have been reported, dozens of houses were reported to have collapsed in Xinjiang. more ›

Seen on a poster outside a store selling Android mobile devices in Suining, Sichuan province: "Steve Jobs has kicked the bucket. Why would you still be buying Apple?"
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At the Kirti Monastery in Northern Sichuan, two teenaged Tibetan monks set themselves on fire on Monday, in what looks to be the second case of self-immolation by Tibetan monks in six weeks, and the third separate incident this year. more ›

Continuous downpours in Sichuan Province since last Thursday have killed eight people and left more people missing. The rain-triggered floods have affected the lives of 1.5 million people in four cities and 21 counties, says the provincial flood control office. more ›

Via NoCommentTV: "A group of stranded Chinese people had to be rescued from a bridge after part of it collapsed due to heavy flooding in Sichuan Province, SW China. Fire-fighters set up a zip-line to ferry people across the void as the waters raged below them." more ›

Cue the ominous music! Apparently fearlessness is a trait the Buddhist faithful have in spades: "At least 30 Tibetans have been detained in 15 incidents of protest this month in a restive part of Sichuan Province, in western China, according to a report this week by International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group based outside China. Those detained are both monks and laypeople. The protests took place in an area that Tibetans call Kardze, known to the Chinese as Ganzi. The local police headquarters had no comment. The area has been unsettled since April 2008, when at least eight Tibetans were killed by Chinese security forces firing into a crowd of protestors, Tibetan exile groups said at the time. Those protests took place as part of a large uprising that began in Lhasa, Tibet, and unfolded across the Tibetan plateau. The report this week also said two monks from Kardze held a protest in the Barkhor market in Lhasa on June 22, possibly the first there since March 2008. Chinese officials have barred foreigners from going to central Tibet from late June to late July." [New York Times] more ›

Tragedy has struck again in light of this year's Gaokao, the Chinese national college entrance exam. On the morning of June 7 -- the first day of the exam -- a male student in Longhui County, Hunan province, committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor of the dormitory building. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he died soon after from sustaining critical injuries. more ›

We told you about this two-headed baby born in Suining, Sichuan province last month and thought we'd share some updates! The two girls were born sharing so many organs that the doctors were be unable to separate them and worried they would not survive. We're happy to inform you that the the girls are still alive and being cared for by the intensive care unit of a Chongqing hospital. more ›

Seven women from Gansu province's Hui county (徽县) have claimed they were beaten up and stripped of their clothing by men dressed in black clothing, while trying to report corruption by officials. more ›

It's been three years since the great Sichuan earthquake struck, killing 70,000 and leaving 4.8 million people homeless. While most of the rubble may have been cleared away and entire cities rebuilt, the emotional scars remain for many of the survivors who are still trying to put their lives together. Yesterday, public ceremonies were held in numerous cities across the Sichuan province to mark the third anniversary of the killer tremblor. more ›

The birth of a pair of conjoined twins who share a single body has stunned doctors in Suining, Sichuan province. The girls were delivered by caesarean section and weighed 9 pounds. While the twins have separate spines and oesophaguses, they share all other major organs and hence separating them would be impossible, say doctors. The parents of the girls, both migrant farmers, say they had never wanted the child as they were not sure if they were able to afford it but doctors did not detect the abnormality in the baby until a few days before birth. The top priority now for doctors though is to keep the twins alive. more ›

See that billboard on the right? It reads "Qingming condolences to my lost wife Gao Dezhen, who passed away during labor at the No. 2 Affiliated Hospital of West China Hospital on February 18, 2011." more ›

Heartwarming video from Tudou featuring survivors from the devastating 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan sending their love and well wishes to the victims of the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
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In December the world watched (and giggled) as panda researchers donned panda suits for the good of the species, in an effort to reduce human contact and prepare them for the wild. This time they dressed up for the transfer of Cao Cao and her cub Cao Gen to the outer ring of the Wuloong Panda Reserve in Sichuan. more ›

The Spring Festival is all about spending time with your family and if new years aren't about turning over a new leaf, then we don't know what is. Over the holiday, a jail in Jialing, Sichuan found a meaningful way to do both and allowed over 150 of its inmates to invite their relatives for a foot-washing ceremony. The traditional Confucian ceremony acted as an apology for the shame they brought to their families. more ›

Usually when we hear something about China saving the environment, it has to do with the heaps of government investment in solar and wind power - the whole "green tech" sputnik moment, to borrow a now annoying and hackneyed phrase. Unseen until now is a surprising alleged new force in the environmental movement: China's billionaires, who may now be privatizing the business of nature reserves. more ›

Could China make it as the leader in global efforts in wildlife conservation? They're certainly struggling for the title. China has eagerly announced it's most ambitious conservation plan in a generation before the opening tomorrow of a UN biodiversity conference. more ›

Tropical storm Agatha swept through Central America, killing 178 people and creating a giant sinkhole in Guatemala City that was so big that it swallowed an entire three-story building. Now that is some skill. Not to be outdone though, Chinese netizens have posted the country's own crazy sinkholes. more ›