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Qian Xuesen, who died Oct. 31 at 98, didn't like being called the father of China's guided-missile program: he felt that the title didn't give credit to his fellow researchers. Indeed, while the Chinese-born, U.S.-educated rocket scientist was technically brilliant, he also realized that legions of bright thinkers can do far more than one genius ever could. A co-founder of what became Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Qian helped debrief German rocket scientists following World War II, but he was accused of being a Communist spy at the height of the McCarthy...
Green Technology In an Oct. 23 speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Obama said the country that wins the race to develop renewable forms of energy "will be the nation that leads the global economy." That's something China's leadership heartily agrees with. China has become the world's leading producer of greenhouse gases, and many of its big cities choke on smog from cars and coal-fired power plants. But it is also a global pioneer in renewable energy. The government has mandated that by next year 3% of its power must come from renewable sources, excluding...
...China's defense spending has increased by an annual average of 16% over the past 10 years, and on Oct. 1 the government marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic with a massive military parade. U.S. officials often question why China feels its military requires such a sustained modernization program, and a Pentagon report in March said that a lack of transparency from the Chinese side "poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation." China rejected the U.S. report as "groundless" criticism and an effort to stir...
...government advisory body on biomedical ethics estimates that out of approximately 350 to 400 cases of assisted suicide each year, about one-third are from abroad. "We as a country have no interest in being attractive for suicide tourism," Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told a news conference on Oct. 28. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church, the country's largest religious denomination, welcomes the government's move. "Those of us who respect human life can't approve or encourage assisted suicide," Monsignor Kurt Koch, president of Swiss Bishops Conference, said in a statement. (Read a brief history of assisted suicide...
While newspapers in the U.S. are still filled with reports of foreclosures and ongoing declines in home prices, the headlines in China tell a different story. One local daily reports that in Shanghai on Oct. 30, more than 200 potential buyers crammed into the sales office of a new housing development, snapping up 120 of the 150 available apartments in just one night. Several weeks earlier in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, 300 people lined up to buy new apartments, some of them arriving two days before the sale. A picture in the local press showed eager customers...