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Sandstorm, snow and freezing weather have hit northwest China's
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since Thursday, affecting five
million people and causing an estimated loss of five billion yuan (US$
714 million), local authorities said on Monday.

As the Siberian cold front moved southward, the extreme weather,
including strong winds, sandstorms, snow and low temperature, wreaked
havoc in most part of Xinjiang from April 17 to 20, said Qian Zhi, the
regional vice chairman.

The disaster affected 473,733 hectares of crops, or 69 percent of the
total in the region, and 411,466 hectares of fruit trees. About
103,500 livestock were killed while another 3.25 million were injured
or lost, he said.

The temperature in Urumqi, the region capital, dropped from 22 to
minus four degrees Celsius in three days, but it is expected to start
rising from Monday.

The regional government has ordered agriculture, forestry and water
resources bureaus to step up relief and restoration efforts, Qian
said.


(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2008)

Three people were confirmed dead in mud flows and strong winds caused
by Typhoon Neoguri in south China's Guangdong Province, said the
provincial flood-control headquarters on Sunday.

http://weather.china.org.cn/english/
http://www.china.org.cn/environment/node_1033890.htm

On Apr 23, 12:55 pm, Weatherlawyer wrote:

http://weather.china.org.cn/english/...de_1033890.htm

http://www.smg.gov.mo/smg/centenary2/index_four.htm

On Apr 23, 3:51 pm, Weatherlawyer wrote:

http://weather.china.org.cn/english/...g.cn/environme...

http://www.smg.gov.mo/smg/centenary2/index_four.htm

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...lin e&group=0

Explains a lot about China and all their spam. It's like something
from the 1980's. Or maybe it was the translator?

Perhaps a criminal country worse than Israel has just branded Sharon
Stone: "the public enemy of all mankind".

What did she do that so deplorable?

She said: “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the
Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else.

And then the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I
thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things
happen to you?”

So she had the cheek to state her thoughts out loud. And these heinous
thoughts?

She doesn't "think anyone should be unkind to anyone else."

Makes her sound Serbian does it not?
She will be spamming newsgroups next. Not to sell dresses by Dire
Christian though.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/bu...4&e i=5087%0A

That's the last time I buy a dress off them.

Dude - I'm impressed! You finally cracked the master code sequence.
The NSA will be thrilled.

On May 30, 9:25*am, Weatherlawyer wrote:
Perhaps a criminal country worse than Israel has just branded Sharon
Stone: "the public enemy of all mankind".

What did she do that so deplorable?

She said: “I’m not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the
Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else.

And then the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I
thought, is that karma? When you’re not nice that the bad things
happen to you?”

So she had the cheek to state her thoughts out loud. And these heinous
thoughts?

She doesn't "think anyone should be unkind to anyone else."

Makes her sound Serbian does it not?
She will be spamming newsgroups next. Not to sell dresses by Dire
Christian though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/bu...s/30dior.html?...

That's the last time I buy a dress off them.

Driving through Dujiangyan, a resort town in China's Sichuan province
that was hit by the May 12 earthquake, was surprising.

I'd expected the place to be in ruins, like a factory village further
up in the hills we'd visited the previous day. But it wasn't.

Most of the buildings were still standing and people were going about
their business. There were cars on the roads. The shops were mostly
open.

Only a few buildings had collapsed. A lot of them though, were
schools.

The school we visited, the Xian Jin Primary School, was down an alley.
More than 600 children were at their desks when the powerful magnitude
7.8 quake hit.

About half of them were killed when their school collapsed into a heap
of broken concrete and twisted steel reinforcement bars.
China's lost children
By David Hawkins in Dujiangyan, southwestern China

About those bars – they're supposed to give the building strength. But
walking through what's left of the school, I noticed that a lot of the
twisted steel bars were thinner than my little finger.

I don't know anything about construction techniques, but it seems
obvious that whoever built this school, and the 7,000 or so others
like it that also collapsed during the earthquake, didn't build it
properly.

It's even more painfully obvious considering that all - every one -
of the apartment buildings surrounding the Xian Jin school are still
standing. Most are only slightly damaged. People are still living in
them.

Reminders

We'd arrived at the school early in the morning when no one was there.
In the rubble we found reminders of the things that are important to
six-to-12-year-old kids: A Barbie doll. A football. A pencil case.
Notebooks.

A torn poster celebrating the upcoming Olympics drifted through the
schoolyard.

Children's shoes were strewn about. An art project that surely would
have made a child's parents proud was covered with dust.

Then the parents arrived.

Most stood at the edge of the pile of debris where their children
perished, holding pictures of their little boy or girl, taken in much
happier times.

One held up a photo of her dead son for everyone to see. Another
couple walked into the middle of the pile of rubble, and set up a
small shrine.

Before a gilt-framed photo of their daughter, maybe eight-years-old,
they burned paper money as Chinese tradition calls for and laid down
small items of food, presumably her favourites.

I don't know her name or anything about her. Her parents were too
grief-stricken to talk. But I can imagine the anguish her parents are
feeling.

Grief

My son is nine, about the same age as many of the kids whose young
bodies were torn and crushed here.

The little girl's mother sobbed uncontrollably until she was
exhausted. I couldn't keep back my own tears. Even now, when I watch
the story we broadcast later, I choke up.

Some psychologists say that people who tragically lose loved ones go
through three stages: denial, grief, then anger.

Now the parents of the children who died in the earthquake are getting
angry. They want to know why the schools were shoddily built. They
want to know who is responsible.

But the Chinese government hasn't given them any answers.

It doesn't want the question to be asked. It's broken up small
memorials and demonstrations by parents, afraid perhaps of the
political ramifications.

As always, China's leaders must keep control.

Among the parents, there was a man with a camera, taking pictures, not
of what's left of the school, but of the other people who had come to
pay their respects or to grieve.

Plainclothes officials arrived and politely, but insistently, demanded
to see our papers.

Soon after that the police came, along with about 20 soldiers. They
told everyone to leave; that they were sealing the place off "for our
safety".

Of course, that wasn't the reason. Chinese officials don't want the
story to be told.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...3DF768568E.htm