Frank Langfitt

'It's Christmas in June': China Revels In NSA Leaks Story

Frank Langfitt — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:51:00 +0000

Earlier this year, the U.S.

Confessed NSA Leaker Hole Up In Hong Kong Hotel

Frank Langfitt — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:30:00 +0000

The Guardian has identified its source for a series of reports it published in recent days on secret U.S. surveillance activity. The paper says the source is Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA who now works for a private-sector defense and technology consulting firm.

Rubber Ducky, You're (Not) The One. Hong Kong Quacker Spawns Others

Frank Langfitt — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:19:00 +0000

Perhaps it was inevitable.

More Than 100 Dead In China Poultry Plant Blaze

Frank Langfitt — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:37:00 +0000

A fire at a poultry processing plant fire in northeast China on Monday has killed at least 119 people, according to the Jilin province government. The blaze is one of the country's deadliest industrial accidents in recent years.

Flames broke out a little after 6 a.m. and the sprawling, low-slung plant filled with dark smoke, witnesses said. About 300 workers were inside the facility owned by the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry Company in Mishazi Township of Dehui City.

The state-run newspaper Southern Metropolis reports that all but one of the plant's doors were locked at the time.

In China, Customer Service And Efficiency Begin To Blossom

Frank Langfitt — Wed, 29 May 2013 20:28:00 +0000

China's infamous bureaucracy has bedeviled people for ages, but in recent years, daily life in some major Chinese cities has become far more efficient.

For instance, when I worked in Beijing in the 1990s, many reporters had drivers. It wasn't because they didn't drive, but because they needed someone to deal with China's crippling bureaucracy.

I had a man named Old Zhao, who would drive around for days to pay our office bills at various government utility offices.

China's Leaders Promise To Speed Up Economic Reform

Frank Langfitt — Wed, 29 May 2013 17:31:00 +0000

The Communist Party's new leadership has pledged to change China's slowing economy by putting a greater emphasis on private enterprise and reining in huge but far less profitable state-owned businesses. Economists say the party has no choice but to update if it wants to stay in power, but they doubt that a genuine overhaul is in the works.

China's Air Pollution: Is The Government Willing To Act?

Frank Langfitt — Fri, 24 May 2013 08:11:00 +0000

Denise Mauzerall arrived in Beijing this year at a time that was both horrifying and illuminating.

China Builds Museums ... But Will The Visitors Come?

Frank Langfitt — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:39:00 +0000

Shanghai did something last fall that few other cities on the planet could have even considered. It opened two massive art museums right across the river from one another on the same day.

The grand openings put an exclamation point on China's staggering museum building boom.

Vietnam's Appetite For Rhino Horn Drives Poaching In Africa

Frank Langfitt — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:05:00 +0000

Africa is facing a growing epidemic: the slaughter of rhinos.

So far this year, South Africa has lost more than 290 rhinos — an average of at least two a day. That puts the country on track to set yet another record after poachers killed 668 rhinos in 2012.

Behind the rise in killings are international criminal syndicates and global economic change.

Rat 'Mutton' And Bird Flu: Strange Days For Meat Eaters In Shanghai

Frank Langfitt — Wed, 08 May 2013 06:50:00 +0000

The past couple of months have been unsettling ones for meat eaters in Shanghai.

In March, more than 16,000 dead pigs showed up in a stretch of the Huangpu River — a main source of the city's drinking water.

Local officials insisted both the water and the city's pork supply were safe, but they never explained exactly how the pigs died or how they ended up in the river.