A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman insisted that it was “unacceptable” to place the blame on China, although it must be noted that Google hasn’t directly accused the Chinese government directly. What has said though that the hacking campaign did originate in Jinan.

The American company said that its security wasn’t breached but has indicated that the passwords of individuals were obtained through an act of fraud. It has also revealed that Chinese political activists and government officials in neighbouring Asian countries were also directly targeted from the city which is 250 miles south of China’s capital Beijing.

The White House has revealed that it has launched its own investigation into the reports but doesn’t believe that official email accounts of US government officials were breached. Within the world of IT, it has been suggested that it will be extremely difficult for analysts trying to determine whether or not governments or individuals were responsible for carrying out such attacks.

What is most worrying though is the fact that victims were people that have access to sensitive and secret information raises, raising the possibility that cyber-espionage has been at play and not cyber-crime.

In northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, which borders with Nepal, it’s been revealed by local authorities that as many as 40 people have perished since Saturday.

Several of these victims were said to have been homeless.

According to an emergency disaster official, the cold conditions in the neighbouring state of Bihar — one of India’s poorest — have resulted in 11 deaths since Sunday, although some private welfare agencies have suggested that in excess of 30 people have died due to the freezing temperatures.

Thousands of schools and colleges have been closed by authorities and blankets as well as firewood have been handed out to the population. Officials have also used state runned shelters to house homeless people.

In China, the northern part the of the country has been covered by a heavy blanket of snow, hindering and sometimes paralysing traffic in the region’s major roads and resulting in the cancellation of dozens of flights.

Having enjoyed the last few years with snow-free winters, Beijing experienced its most important snowfall since 1951 with 20cm covering the Chinese capital.

Industry experts are revealed that stalled shipments of food may result in a temporary hike of prices, although Yi Xianrong, an economist at Beijing’s Chinese Academy of Social Sciences no important economic damage would result from the harsh wintery conditions because they’re too localised to have a significant negative impact.

He said that all the snow would actually help the country’s agriculture industry as it will help crops in the spring when it will all melt away.

The death sentence of Akmal Shaikh was upheld on Tuesday despite pleas for clemency from human rights groups, his family and the UK Government.

Shaikh’s supporters say he suffered from a mental illness, believed to be bipolar disorder, and was duped into carrying 4 kilograms of herion into China.

His cousins, Soohail and Nasir, travelled to China to visit in him prison and make an eleventh hour plea to have the execution delayed so his mental health could be assessed.

He died in the early hours of Tuesday morning and it is believed his body was buried later in the day in accordance with Islamic laws.

Mr Shaikh’s execution prompted a war of words between both UK and Chinese authorities.

PM Gordon Brown, who spoke with Chinese premier Hu Jintao to urge him to put a halt to the execution said he was appalled and disappointed at the failure to grant clemency.

Chinese authorities in both Beijing and London hit back by insisting that Shaikh had no prior medical record of mental illness, and warned not to get involved in China’s judicial affairs.

The dispute culminated on Tuesday night in a difficult conversation between Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis and the Chinese Ambassador Fu Ying, who was called to explain the action taken by China.

Shaikh, 53 from Kentish Town in north London, was arrested in Urumqi, north west China, in September 2007 and convicted of smuggling 4 kilograms of heroin into the country.

The comments were made by Walt Disney Co. Asia Parks President Bill Ernest, amid concerns the new Disneyland Shanghai park could siphon out visitors from the company’s already active Hong Kong amusement destination.

Ernest commented that in America, with only the quarter of the Chinese population, there are two large scale resorts, one in Orlando, Florida as well as one in Anaheim, California.

According to Ernest, there is lots of room to accommodate more of such venues. He made the comments while at the Disneyland Hong Kong groundbreaking ceremony, adding that the entertainment giant believes the business is sufficient to support the two amusement parks.

The proposal for a Disney theme park to be developed in one of Shanghai’s districts was finally approved last month by China’s planning agency.

The move has been seen as part of the Chinese government push to make the country’s biggest city and main financial hub into a international tourist destination as well as global services center.

Although Ernest claimed that it was too early in the negotiation process with the Chinese government to have any accurate numbers about the resort’s price tag, the estimated cost of the proposed Shanghai Disneyland Park has been set at $3.5 billion.

As for the Hong Kong theme park, it’s already schedule to go through expansion, as $465 million have been announced last July by Disneyland and was seen as a long-overdue project in order to attract more young adults by dealing with the fact that the the park was considered too small.

 A hacker fighting team based at the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire is being asked to deal with the situation.

The anti-hacking team is counteracting computer-based espionage coming from old cold war enemies such as China and Russia.

 The House of Lords Home Affairs Committee was informed about the definition given by GovCertUK for an incident as any real or suspected occurrence pertaining to data security or of computer systems.

Over the past 12 months, more than 300 such incidents have been handled by GovCertUK.

The health of cyber space is continually being monitored by a Cyber Security Operations Centre, which also co-ordinate responses to attacks.

These hundreds of serious cyber attacks are linked to attempts to the illegal access to public sector systems within the UK and do not take into account attacks perpetrated on the private sector, or other criminal rackets.

MI5 has said that they expect several of these hackers to be state-sponsored spies attempting to gather intelligence and industrial data.

Another worry is that key infrastructure including the national grid or the internet may become infected by computer viruses aiming at shutting them down.

Head of MI5 Jonathan Evans has warned that the UK is facing unreconstructed attempts by China, Russia, as well as others who use technical attacks of a high degree of ophistication in a bid to steal sensitive technology concerning military and civilian projects, plus economic and political intelligence.

Last April, Chinese hackers stole information pertaining to the design and electronics systems on a Joint Strike Fighter programme worth the $300bn ( £186bn) and being developed by British Aerospace and Lockheed Martin.

Citing a government representative, The National Business Daily reported that the local government has completed the registration process of villagers seeking compensation for the cost involved with vacating the four-square-kilometre parcel of land.

Government officials still have to work out the details concerning the cost allocated to each relocation.
Authorities came up with the six billion yuan figure by basing themselves on a previous compensation paid to residents of a neighbouring land, industry insiders said.

Shanghai government officials were not available for comment.

The Shanghai government and Disney announced a few weeks ago that Beijing had given its okay for the theme park project, which will represent one of the largest foreign investments in the country.

None of the parties involved have revealed any costs or time line for the project but speculation has revealed an estimated total price tag of 24.5 billion yuan for the first phase of the ambitious them park.

The attraction will be located in the Chuansha county of Pudong, Shanghai’s up and coming district, and will also include would include a hotel and a shopping complex.

In Beijing earlier today, Communist Party officials finally ended years of speculation by approving Disney’s long-awaited first amusement park to be built in mainland China.

The announcement comes less than 14 days prior to US President Barack Obama’s first official visit to China, which is scheduled to begin on November 15 in Shanghai.

The announcement follows 10 years of seesawing negotiations between the Shanghai authorities and Disney which showed the difficulties which foreign media companies face when trying to gain a foothold in the country in order to reach 1.3 billion Chinese.

Such entertainment ventures have become particularly attractive thanks to rising incomes in China as wealthier families search for new ways to pamper their kids, most of them born under China’s policy of “one couple, one child”.

Walt Disney officials said The Project Application Report (PAR) for a new theme park in Shanghai has been awarded approval from the central government of China authorities. The theme park will be built in the Pudong district of the city.

Pudong is Shanghai’s new business heart where several skyscrapers have risen in the last decade alongside a multitude of apartment complexes. A Disney theme park would certainly contribute to inject life into this rather soulless ocean of offices and shopping malls and may even rekindle the fortunes of Shanghai which is facing tough competition from several other urban centres in China.

No budget or schedule for the theme park construction has been revealed. But when speculations of an agreement spread this week, the US entertainment giant was said to be investing $US3.6 billion for a 10-square-kilometre theme park.

A theme park dedicated to the writer’s work is scheduled to open in Shanghai to coincide with the World Expo in May 2010, it was announced Friday.

Yang Wenyan, the project’s media partner and director of the Chinese Haha kid’s channel, said the eight hectare attraction will feature the celebrated author’s stories such as the Little Mermaid, the Emperor’s New Clothes and the Ugly Duckling.

Yang said the park is set for a launch on May 11, timed to go hand and hand with the activities of the World Expo. He added that the attraction’s opening marks the 60th year of diplomatic relations between Denmark and China.

Denmark has promised the park a copy of the famous Andersen bronze statue which decorates the front entrance area of Copenhagen city hall.

The Hans Christian Andersen park will be located in the northeast suburbs of the Chinese financial hub. The project was first revealed in August 2006, but was postponed because of financing difficulties, according to Chinese media.

Shanghai Gujing Investment and Development Co Ltd, the project’s most important investor, has not divulged any budget information, but it has been said that the attraction costs around $12.5-millionto develop.

Meanwhile, Denmark’s involvement with the World Expo is scheduled to also include another icon; Copenhagen’s famous sculpture of the Little Mermaid will be shipped to Shanghai and will be featured as the centrepiece of Denmark’s pavilion.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805 –1875) was a Danish poet and author celebrated the world over for his famous children’s stories.

During Andersen’s lifetime, the author was acclaimed for delighting kids worldwide. His poetry and fairy tales have been translated into more than 150 languages.

Every person living in a hill top village near the west-southern Chinese city of Kunming must be no more than 4ft 3in tall and run their own fire brigade and police force their 120-strong community.

The ‘short’ group of villagers has now decided to turn their community into a tourist attraction by constructing mushroom shaped houses and living like fairy tale characters.

Community spokesman Fu Tien said as small people the villagers are used to being bellied and exploited by some ‘big’ regular sized people. But in the community, every one of the villagers is small and they do everything for themselves.

The concept of housing ‘dwarves’ in special housing would create an uproar in the West, and even in China the community’s choice have sparked fierce controversies among the expats living in the country.

On expat recently commented on GoKunming website about the villagers by saying that he had imagined an obscure freak show which would be something more akin to the middle ages.

The person added that all one must do is pay the entrance fee in order to watch these people perform.

But others commented that the idea was a good given the huge amount of surplus labour in China; this give this community an opportunity to fend for themselves.

A recent report says Tan Lin, an official with the Tourism Bureau of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), explained that foreign tourists would not be given the proper travelling documents from September 22 onwards, although visitors who are already in Tibet will be permitted to stay.

A female employee at the official Lhasa Tourism Bureau in said that passes for foreign travellers allowing access to Tibet will be stopped from September 24 to October 8. She claimed that news was based directly from the Tibet Tourism Bureau.

The notice contained no other information and no reason for the temporary regulation. Travel agents have claimed that the ban was already in place.

The report also stated that tourism business was now down 20 to 30 percent in Lhasa

China is currently demanding that foreign passport holders obtain special permission to visit Tibet and routinely stops visitor from all Tibetan areas of Gansu, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces during sensitive times.

The Chinese government has been increasing security across the country in the past month in preparation for the key happening which is scheduled to promote China’s accomplishment in military technology. Knives are presently banned from being sold in some shops including large cahins such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour following last week’s two separate knife attacks near Tiananmen Square.