China Needs More Chocolate Tins of Postage Stamps

brown paper 2Several years ago I worked as a research reporter for the New York Times’ Beijing bureau. One of the best trips I took, alongside another reporter, was to Zhengzhou in Henan province. We were there to visit two HIV/AIDS activists—Hu Jia and Gao Yaojie.

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130 Years of Krakatoa

Krakatoa_eruption_lithographA hundred and thirty years ago this month Indonesia’s Krakatoa volcano erupted, sending plumes of ash so high it discolored the horizon in San Francisco. The explosion killed nearly 40,000 people and dispatched pumice as far away as Zanzibar. The boom is reported to have been the loudest sound ever heard in modern history. Via The Jakarta Post, read more

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