olympics

Beijing is "trying it's best to improve the environment" for the Olympics, largely by shutting down factories. But to really improve the environment in Beijing in the long term the government will need to focus on a much smaller but more prevalent carbon and particulate emitter: the car.
In the past, the city hasn't shown much interest in lowering the subsidy on gasoline or limiting cars, which, in a typically Chinese conflict of interest, are largely produced by state-owned companies. But last month, in a reflection o...

Video by Martin Connolly

The other day, as my roommate and I were on our way to sell a load of plastic bottles and paper boxes to our local recycling man, we were stopped by one of our vigilant neighbors. "Whoa, he's not there! He won't be back for two months!" Th...

Combine rising fuel costs with escalating security concerns in China, and this makes perfect sense -- kind of: ahead of the Olympics, a Chinese anti-terror team has recently been training on specially-outfitted Segways, the electric, gyro-balanced scooters that are more commonly seen zipping across Silicon Valley campuses.

The scooters, which claim a top speed of 12.5 km/hour and which inventor Dean Kamen billed as nearly impossible to tip-over (George W. didn't get that memo) will also be used by officials and sec...