Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

SHANGHAI - The death toll from a highly infectious virus that preys on children rose to 24 Sunday as it spread to a new province amid heightened efforts by China's Health Ministry to contain it.

The official Xinhua News Agency said an 18-month old boy who died in Foshan city in Guangdong province Friday had enterovirus 71, known as EV-71. Another child who died in the same district on April 25 also tested positive, it said.

The deaths follow 22 already reported in central Anhui province, 1,000 miles to the north. More than 3,000 have been infected.

Veterinary officials in Hai'an county and the city of Dongtai, both in Jiangsu province, confirm in a statement that chickens in the two areas tested positive for H5N1 virus. The statement did not say when the birds got sick, whether they had died from the virus or how many were infected. The two areas are about 20 miles (30 kilometers) apart.

Respiratory disease is already a leading cause of death in China, but this latest study suggests a startling rise. In the 30-year period, it calculates, about 83 million Chinese people will die prematurely of lung disease. That includes lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an even bigger killer.

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.

After six decades in control, Communist officials are accustomed to issuing sweeping draconian edicts such as this, confident that they unfailingly act for the benefit of all. Citizens end up angry but are helpless to act on their frustrations.

China's local media previously reported that a government website in Jinzhou, Hubei Province, had been hacked on December 5. Today's Chutian Jinbao (the "Golden Post") reports that police have arrested four suspects who are believed to have taken part in the attack:

HONG KONG (Al'Reuters) - It was only a matter of time: China is catching Blackberry fever. And like most other things in that burgeoning economy, it's likely to be at cut-rate prices.

The magic day has arrived - 08/08/08 - and like some Torch-ignited wildfire, a meme has spread across the Twittersphere whereby you include #080808 in all your twits to show your support and excitement for the Olympic Games.

Despite now living in Japan, Rick Martin comments on the recent hacking of the Yasukuni shrine site by Chinese hackers. He cautions that though some hacked sites are undoubtedly the work of Chinese hackers, many "from China" attacks may be simply caused by the fact that a large network of infected PCs on computers running pirated Windows are present in China.