China’s Sudanese dilemma: Secure oil whatever the cost

News broke in late March that South Sudan ordered its oil companies to start production again. The fledgling Sub-Saharan nation stopped oil exports in January 2012 amid failed negotiations with Sudan over oil transmission prices. Not that this is anything new. The two Sudans reached an agreement last September but it was never implemented due to disagreement over border security issues.

By Tim Daiss | Notebook, Opinion | Wednesday, 3 April 2013 at 3:10 pm

Selling Secrets to the Mainland: Military Espionage in Taiwan (part 2)

The question of why so many Taiwanese military officers would betray their country is a complicated one, as complicated as the six-decade plus relationship between China and Taiwan itself.

By Tim Daiss | Notebook | Thursday, 28 February 2013 at 4:00 am

Selling secrets to the mainland: Military espionage in Taiwan (part 1)

Cross-Taiwan Strait relations between China and Taiwan have thawed in recent years. China, who until the late 1970s was firing artillery shells toward the island nation, has supposedly taken a softer approach to what it considers a renegade or breakaway Chinese province.

By Tim Daiss | Notebook | Wednesday, 27 February 2013 at 3:29 pm

5000 Mile Project: A chance meeting with the ‘Earth People’ of Patagonia

My husband David and I have been winding through Patagonia’s forests and endless pampas on a running expedition from the southern-most tip of South America to the Caribbean Sea; www.5000mileproject.org, “Running for the continent’s wild lands and wildlife”. Recently we met with some most unusual Patagonians.

By Katharine and David Lowrie | Notebook | Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 3:59 pm

Must watch: Gangnam Style Robot

One robot stole the show at a robotics competition in China with its version of the viral video dance sensation Gangnam Style.

The dance, made famous by Korean rapper Psy, has been viewed over 100 million times online.

By James Legge | Arts, Music | Monday, 5 November 2012 at 1:11 pm

After results day: Are UK teenagers driven enough?

Official figures released yesterday show that the proportion of GCSEs awarded at least a C grade has fallen for the first time in the exam’s history.

By Nyima Pratten | Notebook, Opinion | Friday, 24 August 2012 at 9:00 am

UK twenty somethings are changing the face of migration in China

It was a dismal, wet and rainy weekday evening at one of Shanghai’s most popular nightspots last Wednesday. It may have been the impending typhoon scaring off many of the locals but there was something distinctly different about my first visit back to this club in over a year.

By Nyima Pratten | Notebook | Tuesday, 14 August 2012 at 12:01 am

Bob Hoskins, Gu Kailai, Nicola Adams, RVP

What’s trending and why?

By Ellen E Jones | Notebook | Thursday, 9 August 2012 at 10:44 am

The British Chinese community and the UK media

The recent negative attention received by Chinese Olympic athletes in the press has made me consider the role that Chinese people often take in the UK media.

By Nyima Pratten | Notebook, Olympics, Opinion, Sport | Monday, 6 August 2012 at 10:31 am

Stiglitz: the full transcript

There’s some interesting stuff in there. Joseph Stiglitz says that the Vickers reforms to ringfence retail banking pobably don’t go far enough. He proposes a theory on why Germany practices left-wing economics at home but right-wing economics abroad (there’s a soldiarity gulf). He also explains why China can combine high growth with high inequality.

By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye, Econoblog | Monday, 2 July 2012 at 11:54 am