YANGJIANG, Guangdong: A major underwater museum housing an 800-year-old merchant ship opened to the public in this coastal city in western Guangdong province yesterday.
The 30-m wooden vessel, named Nanhai No 1, or South China Sea No 1, lies in a “crystal palace” made of glass inside the Maritime Silk Road Museum.
“Today marks a new journey [...]

Despite the sluggish demand from overseas, China will probably surpass Germany as the world’s largest exporter in 2009, said the Ministry of Commerce. Â
The MOFCOM also predicted the exports in 2009 will drop by 16.5 percent from a year earlier, which means that the nation is expected to export goods worth $1.19 trillion in 2009 and [...]

The opening ceremony for the “Dengfeng Songshan Shaolin Culture and Travel Company” was held on Sunday. The new company will manage all tourism near the famous Shaolin Temple on Songshan Mountain in Henan, chinanews.cn reported. However, it will not manage the Shaolin temple itself.
The company will manage the Dengfeng Songshan scenic spot, not included the [...]

Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp (CIC) may get a $200 billion capital injection by the first quarter of next year, after approvals from the relevant authorities, according to sources familiar with the fund.
It would also be the second time that the fund is getting additional funds after it got the same amount when it [...]

China played an “important and constructive” role in sealing the last-minute Copenhagen Accord, premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday, even as he urged the international community to treasure the summit’s hard-won outcome.
Observers tracking the progress of the climate change talks agreed with Wen’s assessment, saying China was making persistent efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. [...]

Construction of two or three inland nuclear power plants is expected to start by the end of next year, in a move that would further enhance the use of clean energy in China, according to sources familiar with the subject.
The new plants will use the AP1000 technology developed by US-based nuclear equipment firm Westinghouse. Nuclear [...]

KUNMING: A man was jailed for 12 years Monday for shooting to death an Indo-Chinese tiger in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, a local court said.
The Mengla county court in Xishuangbanna also ordered Kang Wannian to pay a fine of 100,000 yuan ($14,642) and also 480,000 yuan for state economic losses.
The villager was convicted of shooting [...]

Latest: According to the organizing committee, the conference expects more than 45,000 participants, which include more than 10,000 UN working staff, 20,000-plus delegates from 192 countries, 3,400 journalists and the rest are local support, security and technical staff. Click to See Video Reporting from Li Xing in Copenhagen
A failed security system caused a huge backlog [...]

WASHINGTON:President Barack Obama told top U.S. bankers on Monday they owed the country their help in lifting the economy out of crisis and implored them to lend more money and get behind financial reforms.
“Given the difficulty that businesspeople are having as lending has declined, and given the exceptional assistance banks received to get them through [...]

China’s most famous film director, Zhang Yimou, has finished stunning the world – now he wants only to delight it.
The man behind the sensational opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics knows he will probably never make as many jaws hit the floor as he did last summer. But his latest project is special in [...]