China opens road tunnel under Yangtze River

The first tunnel under the Yangtze River is now open to traffic in central China, under a three month trial. The tunnel is 3.6 km long and is part of an effort to not only relieve traffic congestion, but also to...

How to know when a species becomes extinct

How do scientists know when to classify a species as extinct? Animals such as the Yangtze River Dolphin, the Christmas Island Shrew and the Venezuelan Skunk Frog are all extinct, or close to the brink of...

Yangtze River Dolphins to be more protected

The Chinese government are again stepping in to protect the Yangtze River Dolphins from extinction. They are now going to connect existing reserves of the Baiji dolphin, the most endangered member of the whale...

Heavy rains hit China

About half of China has been hit by torrential rains - killing one person, injuring four and affecting nearly 400,000 people. Experts said the rainfall in several cities exceeded 100 millimetres, while Macheng...

The Five Pokemon of the (Olympic) Apocalypse

OK, so they aren't really Pokemon, but damned if they don't look like them.  "HONG KONG: Superstitious bloggers have linked China's earthquake disaster and other recent misfortunes to the five Olympic...

"Up the Yangtze" Premieres in New York

Up the Yangtze, a new documentary about the impact of the Three Gorges Dam project in China by Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, opens in New York City at the IFC Center tomorrow. The film has won numerous awards...

Chinese River Dolphin Back From The Brink

I recently reported (here's the article) that the " "The Baiji Yangtze Dolphin is with all probability extinct," reads a press release".  However, a businessman in China filmed what appeared to be a "big...

The Chinese dolphin might not be extinct

"Scientists declared the white dolphin, native to China's Yangtze river, extinct last year. But there is a shred of hope: the animal may have been spotted swimming in the wild. Wang Ding, a researcher with the Institute of Hydrobiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences,...

Chinese River Dolphins Extinct

"The Baiji Yangtze Dolphin is with all probability extinct," reads a press release from the baiji.org foundation, a group dedicated to the study and protection of this rare fresh water dolphin.The foundation...

Rare river dolphin 'now extinct'

"A freshwater dolphin found only in China is now "likely to be extinct", a team of scientists has concluded."

"Two Billion" Rats Invade China Lake Towns

"For the past two weeks residents living around China's second largest lake have been able to smell a rat—make that two billion rats. When the Yangtze River flooded on June 23, the water level rose in Dongting Lake, which sits along the river south of Wuhan in...

From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine

"The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die. Skip to next paragraph A Toxic Pipeline Tracking Counterfeit Drugs Reporter Q...

Water! Will there always be Enough?!

WWF lists 10 most endangered rivers globally Five are in Asia, but list includes Rio Grande and Danube Hoping to raise awareness about the state of the world's great rivers, the World Wide Fund for Nature on Tuesday released a report on what it called the 10 most endangered...

Tibetans carry on as glaciers fall victim to global warming

The following article is a chilling reminder of the potential effects of global climate change. The Tibetan Plateau, often thought of as a beautiful place, but not one of global economic significance, actually has a huge potential impact on the global economy as its glaciers...

Farewell to the Yangtze dolphin

"The search for China's rarest dolphin has had an unhappy ending with scientists fearing it is lost forever "

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from