Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

A mysterious epidemic is killing pigs in southeastern China, but international and Hong Kong authorities said today that the Chinese government is providing little information about it, or about the contaminated wheat gluten that has caused deaths and illnesses in other animals.

The lack of even basic details is reviving longstanding questions about whether China is willing to share information about health and food safety issues with potential global implications.

The Chinese government explained that the fatal disease is caused by the excitement of the Olympics, not infected birds, as was previously reported.

A large outbreak of the infamous H5N1 virus was discovered last week in Turpan. So far, a large number of poultry have either died directly from the epidemic or were culled, but so far no humans have contracted the virus.

MIANYANG, China - Chinese authorities prepared on Saturday to drain a swelling lake formed by a devastating earthquake, completing work on a drainage channel to divert water that threatens hundreds of thousands downstream.

Officials are expected to discharge flood water from the lake into the channel between Sunday and Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, quoting Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police.

China on Sunday expanded massively its censorship of the flow of news from foreign sources into the country, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

BEIJING (AFP) - Used condoms are being recycled into hair bands in southern China, threatening to spread sexually-transmittable diseases they were originally meant to prevent, state media reported Tuesday.

In the latest example of potentially harmful Chinese-made products, rubber hair bands have been found in local markets and beauty salons in Dongguan and Guangzhou cities in southern Guangdong province, China Daily newspaper said.

"These cheap and colourful rubber bands and hair ties sell well ... threatening the health of local people," it said.

Because of the recall of made-in-china toys by US toy giant, a HK businessman, whose factory manufactures bulks of these recalled toys, could not foot the bill and committed suicide in his factory in Foshan, Guangdong province, China. The toys are found to contain toxic lead paint.

A strong magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck in the remote Qinghai province of northwestern China on Monday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The quake's epicenter was 1,120 miles west of Beijing, the USGS said. It struck at a depth of 6.2 miles at 9:22 a.m. local time (0122 GMT), the agency said.

BEIJING (Al'Reuters) - China has denied covering up casualties from natural disasters as the official death toll from the strongest typhoon to strike the country in half a century rose to 330, a number residents says is greatly understated.