Stories: China
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In Ecuador, Dependency on Beijing Financing of Development Projects Raises Fears, Uncertainty
The long stretch of roadway snaking through the parched, rolling hills outside this sleepy Ecuadorean port city will one day wind up at the foot of one of the country’s most buzzed-about development projects: a mega-refinery that will transform Ecuador into a formidable force in the region’s oil and gas industry. When the grand structure is...
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One Uranium Mine in Niger Says a Lot About China’s Huge Nuclear-Power Ambitions
The odds of finding much of anything seem slim in northern Niger’s unnerving expanses of hazy white desert. The land is so vast, so untethered from any obvious landmarks that when straying just a few hundred feet off of the inconsistently paved road between Abalak and Agadez, it’s hard to shake the fear that the driver...
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Inside the Amazing Chinese-Built Luxury Hotel in the Capital of One of the World’s Poorest Countries
Food options are limited in northern Niger, but one dietary staple is readily available just about everywhere I went in the vast, landlocked West African country. From remote highway rest stops to the sidewalks in front of the ministry buildings in downtown Niamey, entire sides of lamb sit cooking for hours, fat crackling under meaty columns of smoke. A...
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Meet China’s Salman Rushdie
On a warm late afternoon in June, I sat with Perhat Tursun as he slowly exhaled a puff of smoke from a blue cigarette with shiny gold trim. Arrayed on the pale lace tablecloth before us was an assortment of nuts, sunflower seeds, and wine. The furniture was a muted neo-Victorian, but on the wall behind Perhat hung...
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An Oil Dispute in Niger Is Exposing Big Problems With Chinese Investment in Africa
On August 14, a compressor failed at the Soraz oil refinery near Zinder, Niger, crippling one of the very few pieces of industrial infrastructure in one of the poorest countries in the world. The thing is, there may never have been a compressor blowout. According to multiple energy-industry sources who spoke with Business Insider, the shutdown of the Soraz...
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China: The Best and the Worst Place to Be a Muslim Woman
A woman’s solitary voice, earthy and low, rises above the seated worshipers. More than 100 women stand, bow, and touch their foreheads to the floor as a female imam leads evening prayers at a women-only mosque during the first week of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan in the northeastern Chinese city of Jinan. Reclining beggars line...
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Vladimir Putin’s Tiger Is Lost in China
If you happen to be traipsing about China’s Heilongjiang province and come across a lost-looking Siberian tiger, the Kremlin would like it back. Kuzya, a tiger that was personally released back into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has caused something of an international incident by wading across the Amur River that separates Russia...
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Chinese Exports Help Boost Economy Over India
India has lost its ranking as the country with the most upbeat consumers. That's according to the global information company Nielsen, which says Indonesia now holds the top spot on the list. It's more bad economic news for India, which has been hurt particularly hard by the European debt crisis. It wasn't long ago that many...