Tag: china
Man wakes from boozy night out to find his penis chopped off
A man woke up after a boozy night to discover his penis had been hacked off — and he had no idea how it happened, it’s reported.
Tan Nan had allegedly been out with friends in Hunan, southern China when he became so drunk he fell asleep, according to local media reports.
When he came round the following morning he felt a sharp pain in his groin, then noticed his genitals had been chopped off, reported Chinese-language local paper STEN. Police are now investigating the bizarre case.
Nan allegedly told cops he had no idea who was responsible for the cruel prank.
According to the Sanxiang Metropolis Daily, the 44-year-old from Huaihua, Hunan, was bleeding profusely but several hospitals apparently turned him away as they were not equipped for such an operation.
Finally, he was taken to Changsha Hospital and treated by microsurgery experts, according to reports.
Local media reported that Dr. Wu Panfeng, who treated Nan, said usually parts of the body that had been amputated should be kept in a dry, refrigerated manner.
After seven hours of surgery, his manhood was reported to have been successfully reattached.
Now he is recovering and doing well, medics have said.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/05/21/man-wakes-from-boozy-night-out-to-find-his-penis-chopped-off/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mom discovers daughter bought robot to do her homework, destroys it
We’ve gone from the days of “The dog ate my homework” to “The robot did my homework for me.”
According to a report from a Chinese newspaper, a young schoolgirl there recently spent the 800 yuan (equivalent to about $120) that she’d saved from Lunar New Year presents to buy herself a robot — one that she didn’t buy because it looked cool or she just likes robots.
Rather, she had a specific purpose in mind for the machine — doing her handwriting homework assignments for her, the kind that are common in China and involve writing down phrases from textbooks that help with learning the Chinese language and characters.
According to the South China Morning Post, the girl’s mother discovered the robot while she was cleaning her daughter’s room. And, predictably, she smashed it to teach the girl a lesson.
The mom apparently realized something was possibly amiss when her daughter was able to complete all her homework in just two days, with neat penmanship, despite also juggling festivities and travel that seemed to leave little time to get the work done.
The news about the young girl’s inventiveness actually sparked a flood of sympathetic comments from Chinese social media users.
“Give her a break, how meaningful is copying anyway?” one commenter noted on Weibo, the popular social media platform in China, per the New York Times.
“Proficiently reading and writing in Chinese requires knowing thousands of characters,” the newspaper continued. Copying them in repeated exercises is a steppingstone in Chinese education to learning how to freely write them — and students are also sometimes asked to transcribe a literary text from memory, according to the Times.
It’s tedious work, though, which explains why the girl turned to her robot for help.
It’s also not just students in China sometimes turning to these stylus-gripping robots.
The South China Morning Post found one teacher who acknowledged using one of these robots herself for lesson preparations.
Interestingly, she’d spent a week writing 6,000 Chinese characters to create her own font, but she said nobody could tell the difference between the robot’s writing style and her own.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/22/mom-discovers-daughter-bought-robot-to-do-her-homework-destroys-it/
China slams Canada’s ‘inhumane’ treatment of Huawei CFO
China says Canada has violated her human rights by not allowing Meng proper medical care while in detainment.
China has criticised Canada over its treatment of Huawei Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada last week.
The Chinese government said Canada has not allowed Meng proper medical care while in detainment and has called for her immediate release on medical grounds.
“We believe this is inhumane and violates her human rights,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kan said ahead of Monday’s bail hearing for Meng.
Meng has argued that she should be released on bail while awaiting an extradition hearing, citing fears for her health while jailed in Canada, claiming she is not a flight risk because she has several family members in Canada.
The senior Huawei executive said she was taken to a hospital for treatment for hypertension after being arrested. She cited hypertension as a factor in a bail application seeking her release pending an extradition hearing.
She also said she has long-standing ties to Vancouver dating back at least 15 years, as well as significant property holdings in the city.
US-China trade war
The 46-year-old faces US accusations that she misled multinational banks about Huawei’s control of a company operating in Iran.
This deception put the banks at risk of violating Washington’s sanctions and incurring severe penalties, the court documents said.
The arrest has infuriated Beijing, which demanded Meng’s immediate release, and stoked tensions during the trade war truce between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies.
On Sunday, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad a day after he called in Canadian envoy John McCallum to voice China’s displeasure.
“Le Yucheng pointed out that the US side has seriously violated the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens, and the nature of the violation is extremely bad,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The Chinese side firmly opposes this and strongly urges the United States to attach great importance to China’s solemn and just position,” it said.
US sanctions
Companies are barred from using the US financial system to funnel goods and services to sanctioned entities such as Iran and North Korea.
In Canadian court documents released on Sunday, Huawei said its Iran operations were “in strict compliance with applicable laws, regulations and sanctions” of the United Nations, US and the European Union.
In a company presentation from 2013 that was released with the Canadian court documents, Huawei said it communicated with the US government agencies on a “day-to-day” basis to obtain what it called “professional guidance” on trade compliance.
Article via AlJazeera
First gene-edited babies claimed in China: report
CRISPR gene-editing tool has been tried in diseased adults
A Chinese researcher has claimed he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month that represent perhaps the next monumental test of science and ethics.
The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy so far, the Associated Press reported, citing exclusive access to the researcher, whose discovery was not independently verified.
He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have — an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus.
In recent years scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, known as CRISPR-cas9, which the researcher He used. CRISPR makes it possible to alter DNA to supply a needed gene or disable one that’s causing problems. It’s only recently been tried in adults to treat deadly diseases, and the changes were confined to that person.
A U.S. scientist said he took part in the gene edit work in China, but noted it is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes, the AP said.
He’s claim has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts. He did create a promotional video.
He said the motivation for his research was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child that might be protected from a similar fate.
“I feel a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example,” He told the AP. “Society will decide what to do next.”
The genetic editing of a speck-size human embryo carries significant risks, including the risks of introducing unwanted mutations or yielding a baby whose body is composed of some edited and some unedited cells, said Antonio Regalado, writing for MIT’s Technology Review. Data on the Chinese trial site indicated that one of the fetuses is a “mosaic” of cells that had been edited in different ways, MIT said as part of its own reporting on the discovery.
Some scientists strongly condemned the development.
It’s “unconscionable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible,” Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal, told the AP.
The reported discovery surprised the scientific world but is expected to feature in soon-to-begin conference.
“We have never done anything that will change the genes of the human race, and we have never done anything that will have effects that will go on through the generations,” David Baltimore, a biologist and former president of the California Institute of Technology, said in a prerecorded message ahead of the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing, which begins Tuesday in Hong Kong.
Article via Marketwatch
Fan Bingbing: China’s Most Famous Actress Has Disappeared
Article via: Fan Bingbing: China’s Most Famous Actress Has Disappeared
Imagine if one day Jennifer Lawrence was walking the red carpet in Los Angeles and the next she vanished completely with no word about where she was.
It might sound ludicrous, or terrifying, but it’s the reality in China, where one of the country’s most famous actresses has disappeared without a trace amid an uproar over tax evasion by celebrities.
Fan Bingbing, one of China’s highest-paid and most bankable stars, has appeared in both Chinese and Western films, including the multimillion-dollar X-Men franchise.
Across the country, her face once adorned thousands of advertisements, her star power used to sell a galaxy of luxury brands, from Cartier to Louis Vuitton. She was a regular sight at major award shows and fashion ceremonies. In 2015, Time Magazine named her China’s “most famous actress.”
But the film star hasn’t been seen in public since early June, when, according to a post on her verified social-media account, she went to visit a children’s hospital in Tibet.
In an article by state media Securities Daily on September 6, which was later deleted, the publication said Fan had been brought “under control and about to receive legal judgment.”
No official statement has been made as to Fan’s whereabouts, or any potential criminal charges against the actress.
However, in a country where top celebrities are forced to keep an inoffensive public profile to stay in the Chinese government’s good graces, people have drawn their own conclusions about the actress’ location.
“If you are a billionaire, then that is something that obviously you can enjoy to a certain extent, but you’ve got to be very, very wary that you don’t at any stage cross a red line of some sort and fall afoul of the Chinese Communist Party,” Fergus Ryan, a cyber analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told CNN.
In 2011, the country’s best-known artist, Ai Weiwei, was detained for almost three months during which time his whereabouts were unclear. He was later released after he signed a confession authorities described as being related to tax evasion.
Yin yang contracts
Fan’s purported problems began when alleged copies of a film contract she had signed were leaked onto China’s social media in late May.
According to state tabloid Global Times, she had two different contracts, one for tax purposes saying she was paid $1.5 million (10 million yuan) and a separate, private contract for $7.5 million (50 million yuan).
It’s a practice known in China as “yin-yang contracts,” a form of tax evasion where the first, smaller contract is reported to authorities while the second, larger one is treated as tax-free income.
The man behind the leak, Chinese TV host Cui Yongyuan, apologized in June to Fan for his actions, but the same month the State Administration of Taxation of China urged investigators to look into allegations of yin-yang contracts in the country’s film industry.
Fan’s team issued a furious denial at the time but the actress hasn’t been seen in public since the dispute.
In September, China’s Beijing Normal University released a report, lauded as the first “in the world” and heavily promoted in Chinese state media, which ranked the country’s stars by their level of “social responsibility.” Fan was ranked last, with a score of 0 out of 100.
A producer with a major Chinese studio told CNN the practice of having two contracts, one of them smaller to avoid paying too much tax, was “universal” in the film industry.
He said everyone was worried following Fan’s disappearance, especially because “almost every contract has some irregularities” and won’t stand up to a serious audit.
Like other industry insiders CNN spoke to, he declined to be named due to the political sensitivity of the topic.
Scaring celebrities into line
Jonathan Landreth, former Beijing-based Asia editor for the Hollywood Reporter and longtime observer of China’s entertainment industry, told CNN the Chinese Communist Party was treading a tricky line, keen to use high-profile celebrities to sell the “Chinese Dream,” but not wanting to promote the stark income divide.
“Maybe this is just scaring folk to … start paying taxes. If someone were to get busted, then I think it would send a ripple effect to how film production goes forward in the coming years,” Landreth said.
An executive in a foreign film studio’s China office told CNN the lack of A-list celebrities in China increased the bargaining power and earnings of a lucky few — high-profile performers like Fan.
But while cracking down on them might solve other problems, she said it wouldn’t help address the fundamental lack of talent across the Chinese film and television industries.
Combined with strict ideological control, such measures act only to create a “sad situation” in China’s creative industry, she said.
The controls, though, can only go so far. The Chinese government needs the high-profile celebrities to help drive commerce, both domestically and internationally, to promote China, said Landreth.
The crackdown may in fact be intended to solve a different problem facing authorities. “It has long been an open secret that a movie budget is a great place to hide money,” said Landreth.
The Communist Party’s leadership may hope that by shining a light on celebrity tax avoidance, it could deflect attention and avoid closer public scrutiny of the rumored corruption among top government officials and their families, Landreth told CNN.
Spreading ‘positive energy’
The Chinese Communist Party has long had an uncomfortable relationship with celebrities.
In recent years, state media has called on celebrities to spread “positive energy” on the internet. The threat of career-ending trouble with authorities has led the country’s stars to pay attention to the party’s wishes.
The result is a celebrity culture that has less in common with the salacious and controversial Hollywood familiar to the Western world. In China, celebrities often try to keep their reputations’ positive and inoffensive.
Australian analyst Ryan said when he lived in China, he worked with the publicity team for Chinese actress and singer Li Bingbing.
He encouraged Li to become more involved with environmental causes, including the United Nations Environment Program.
But Ryan said the team would never choose a cause, or take up a fight that was ahead of what the Communist Party was comfortable with, especially if it opposed current government policy.
“You would be foolish to go out ahead of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese authorities on issues and lead the way,” he said.
Despite the speculation and the concern, Ryan said it was possible the explanation for Fan’s disappearance was actually very simple.
“She possibly did something wrong … the evidence was put out there for all to see, I guess, in a way that put the authorities in a position where they had to come down hard on her,” he said.
Exclusive: U.S. accuses China of ‘super aggressive’ spy campaign on LinkedIn
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States’ top spy catcher said Chinese espionage agencies are using fake LinkedIn accounts to try to recruit Americans with access to government and commercial secrets, and the company should shut them down.
William Evanina, the U.S. counter-intelligence chief, told Reuters in an interview that intelligence and law enforcement officials have told LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft Corp., about China’s “super aggressive” efforts on the site.
He said the Chinese campaign includes contacting thousands of LinkedIn members at a time, but he declined to say how many fake accounts U.S. intelligence had discovered, how many Americans may have been contacted and how much success China has had in the recruitment drive.
German and British authorities have previously warned their citizens that Beijing is using LinkedIn to try to recruit them as spies. But this is the first time a U.S. official has publicly discussed the challenge in the United States and indicated it is a bigger problem than previously known.
Evanina said LinkedIn should look at copying the response of Twitter, Google and Facebook, which have all purged fake accounts allegedly linked to Iranian and Russian intelligence agencies.
“I recently saw that Twitter is cancelling, I don’t know, millions of fake accounts, and our request would be maybe LinkedIn could go ahead and be part of that,” said Evanina, who heads the U.S. National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center.
It is highly unusual for a senior U.S. intelligence official to single out an American-owned company by name and publicly recommend it take action. LinkedIn says it has 575 million users in more than 200 counties and territories, including more than 150 million U.S. members.
Evanina did not, however, say whether he was frustrated by LinkedIn’s response or whether he believes it has done enough.
Read more via: Exclusive: U.S. accuses China of ‘super aggressive’ spy campaign on LinkedIn
China Can’t See New Movie Starring Notorious Outlaw Winnie the Pooh
Chinese film authorities have denied Disney’s Christopher Robin a theatrical run in the country, Disney’s head of distribution has confirmed, and the reason might be that the film’s star is something of a resistance leader. No, it’s not Ewan McGregor—who plays the movie’s titular character, now all grown up—but Winnie the Pooh who is the subject of controversy. Chinese censors have cracked down on the tubby bear ever since a meme comparing him to President Xi Jinping took off in 2013, and now Chinese audiences will not be allowed to watch Disney’s new movie because, an anonymous source tells the Hollywood Reporter, the Communist Party considers the character persona non grata.
Christopher Robin, which is already in theaters in the U.S., is the second Disney movie to be rejected in China this year, following A Wrinkle in Time. Another source told THR that Christopher Robin was not necessarily snubbed because it stars Winnie the Pooh, and that the decision “likely has to do with the size and scope of the film given the foreign film quota.” But it seems silly to dismiss censorship as a factor entirely: Searching for Winnie the Pooh by his Chinese name on the microblogging site Weibo results in error messages, and earlier this year, Chinese censors also banned mentions of John Oliver after HBO aired a Last Week Tonightsegment that criticized Xi.
Oh, bother.
Article via: Chinese Audiences Can’t See New Movie
Liangelo Ball and Teammates are Back in the USA
LiAngelo Ball and his 2 UCLA basketball teammates are finally back on U.S. soil after getting the green light to leave China … one week after they were arrested for jacking sunglasses.
TMZ Sports has video of Ball, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley leaving LAX moments ago following a 13-hour flight out of Shanghai … the guys stay straight-faced and mostly silent as they’re hit with a barrage of questions and camera flashes from reporters.
The players had been holed up at the Hyatt Hangzhou — while some of the most powerful people in the world, from President Trump to President Xi to Jack Ma, worked on their release.
Chinese officials reportedly dropped the shoplifting charges on Tuesday and allowed the guys to return home. UCLA says the school will launch its own investigation to decide whether or not to discipline the players.
Been a hell of a week. And with reports saying they could’ve faced 10 years in Chinese prison, guessing they’re all gonna sleep pretty well tonight.
Article via: http://www.tmz.com/2017/11/14/liangelo-ball-ucla-china-arrive-usa/