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Sworn to secrecy by the Japanese Imperial Army, Hideo Shimizu carried the horrors he saw at the notorious Unit 731 facility with him for more than 70 years. The 93-year-old was just 14 when he was drafted as a cadet to the city of Harbin, in what was then Japanese-occupied Manchuria, during World WaR 2. There, he was groomed to take part in some of history's worst atrocities - human experiments carried out on prisoners of war including pregnant women and small children. More than 3,000 people - mostly Chinese civilians, but also Russian, British and American POWs - were...

A top U.S. biosecurity lab is assuming responsibility for signing “poorly drafted” agreements with three high-level biosecurity labs in China that they concede may have broken the law.The three contracts, including one with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), gave the Chinese labs powers to destroy “secret files” from any stage of their collaboration.“The party is entitled to ask the other to destroy and/or return the secret files, materials, and equipment without any backups,” stated the 2017 memorandum of understanding (MOU) that the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) signed with the Wuhan lab, which first came to light in...

Officials in the northern China city of Harbin have underreported cases of the CCP virus during the second wave of its local outbreak, according to internal government documents obtained by The Epoch Times. Meanwhile, one major hospital in Harbin has stopped accepting new patients because of overcapacity and infections among medical staff. Some workers were being observed for symptoms at quarantine centers. In early April, authorities in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang reported another wave of infections in several cities, the most severe in Harbin, the provincial capital. When China’s initial outbreak became severe in January, Harbin designated 24 hospitals...

Harbin city in northern China is facing a second wave of the CCP virus outbreak. Locals have reported long queues in front of hospitals, while traffic police have blocked vehicles from entering local highways, and hospitals announced new rules to prevent the CCP virus from spreading. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus, first broke out in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, in December 2019. From January, the virus quickly spread to other Chinese cities. Harbin is the capital of northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province. The city enacted partial lockdown measures last week. And...

(2nd LD) N. Korean leader stops in Harbin on his way home from China trip: sources (ATTN: ADDS N. Korean leader's arrival at Harbin in lead, para 2-4, TRIMS throughout) BEIJINSHENYANG, China, Aug. 29 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il stopped over in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, on his way home from a surprise trip to China believed to be linked to Pyongyang's father-to-son power transition process, sources said Sunday. Kim arrived in the city at midnight and stayed near Songhua River before meeting with provincial officials and making trips to key industrial facilities there, sources in the city said....

A beluga whale saved a drowning diver by hoisting her to the surface, carrying her leg in its mouth. Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralyzed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20-foot arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible with the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China. Beluga whale Mila had spotted her difficulties and using her sensitive dolphin-like nose guided Yun safely to the surface.

Harbin experiences warm winter (Xinhua) Updated: 2007-01-18 09:45 Citizens enjoy the sunshine on a shopping street on January 17 as Harbin, the northmost large city in China, is going through the warmest winter over the past half century. [Xinhua]  

The annual Ice and Snow Festival has opened in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province in northeast China. The festival is one of the largest of its kind in the world.Thousands of tourists from China and elsewhere brave the sub-zero temperatures to admire the ice sculptures, some of them large enough to walk through.Some of the structures are created by piling ice blocks up to make huge models of buildings. Lights are frozen in the middle of the blocks.Other sculptures are gigantic creations of snow made to resemble geographic features such as Canada's Niagara Falls.Smaller sculptures are carved from blocks of...

Another river is poisoned as city waits for water By Hamish McDonald Herald Correspondent in Beijing and agencies November 26, 2005 ANOTHER chemical plant has exploded in China, spewing toxic benzene into the water supply of a central region as authorities in the country's north-east struggle to protect millions of people from an earlier spill. The blast on Thursday at the Yingte Chemical Co in Dianjiang, part of the huge Chongqing municipality straddling the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, killed one worker and forced the evacuation of 6000 nearby residents and the closure of schools. People in the area...

Mains water supplies in the Chinese city of Harbin have resumed five days after they were cut due to a toxic chemical spill. Provincial governor Zhang Zuoji took the first drink after supplies were reconnected, Xinhua news agency said. An 80km (50-mile) stretch of contaminated water passed through the city of 3.8m people after 100 tonnes of benzene spilled into the Songhua river. The contaminated water is due to reach Russian cities downstream in two weeks. Beijing has begun an inquiry into the spill caused by an explosion at a petrochemical factory on 13 November. For the last five days,...

Saturday November 26, 2005 5:46 PM AP Photo XIN108 By JOE McDONALD Associated Press Writer HARBIN, China (AP) - Premier Wen Jiabao visited this city in China's northeast Saturday and expressed concern for the 3.8 million residents enduring a fourth day without running water while they wait for a spill of toxic benzene in a nearby river to pass. The government warned residents that water supplies, suspended to protect the city after a chemical plant explosion, would not resume until 11 p.m. Sunday, a full day later than initially planned. China has been criticized by environmentalists for its slow response...

About 100 tons of dangerous chemicals equivalent to 10 tanker-truck loads was spewed into the Songhua River, which supplies water to Harbin, the nation's environment watchdog disclosed yesterday. Zhang Lijun, vice-minister of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), told a press conference in Beijing that Jilin Petrochemical Corporation, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), "should be responsible" for the leak of benzene and its derivatives following an explosion at a chemical plant. The plant, on the upper reaches of the river in Jilin Province, earlier denied any connection between the contaminated water and the explosion on November 13,...

Water polluted by the chemical benzene in the Songhua River arrived at Harbin city's upstream water retrieval point, Sifangtai, at 5:00am on November 24. The polluted water will have passed the Harbin metropolitan area on the morning of November 26. After that, it will join the Hulan River, Tangwang River and Mudajiang River. Hopefully, with the increased water volume, dilution, sedimentation, adsorption, and other physical and chemical reactions, the concentration of nitrobenzene in the water could be reduced. Millions are now without water. On November 13, an explosion took place at the Jilin Petroleum Benzene Production Plant, causing the Songhua...

Thursday November 24, 4:27 PM 80-kilometer slick flows into China's Harbin city HARBIN, China (AFP) - An 80-kilometer-long (48-mile) slick of highly toxic benzene flowed along the icy Songhua river into one of China's biggest cities, contaminating water supplies for up to four million people. The carcinogenic chemical reached the outskirts of Harbin, capital of China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, about 5:00 am on Thursday, authorities said. Although water supplies were cut off about 30 hours before the poisoned water reached the city and there were no reports of people being contaminated, the environmental impact of the potential disaster was still...

Panic was today spreading in Harbin, with officials preparing to cut off water supplies as heavily polluted river water flowed towards the Chinese city. Stockpiling began afresh at midnight when the local government switched taps on again for 12 hours after having cut off supplies to almost four million people yesterday. The temporary switch-on came after revised calculations showed the pollution would not reach Harbin until early tomorrow morning.

IMPERIAL JAPANESE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: Witness Account "C" Test How Long a Human Being Could Survive With Just Water and Biscuits Imperial Japanese Medical Orderly Ishibashi witnessed: (Translation) "I saw the malnutrition experiments. They were conducted by the project team under the technician Yoshimura. He was a civilian project team under the technician Yoshimura. He was a civilian member of Unit 731. The purpose of the experiments, I believe, was to find out how long a human being could survive just with water and biscuits. Two individuals were used for this experiment. They continuously circled a prescribed course within...

Harbin to rebuild Orthodox church By Li Fangchao (China Daily) Updated: 2004-12-10 09:02 The original look of the Holy Iveron Icon Church. [File photo] A unique Russian Orthodox Church, the Holy Iveron Icon Church, will be rebuilt after almost half a century of neglect. The project will be part of the rehabilitation of a busy area of Harbin that acts as a transportation centre. The church, with five magnificent Russian-style domes, was built in 1908. The domes, which later disappeared, will be rebuilt with the original features regardless of budget. Some minor renovations are already under way, said a source...

TOKYO - A self-confessed Japanese war criminal called on the government to apologise for testing biological weapons on thousands of Chinese prisoners yesterday in advance of a legal ruling on the activities of a germ warfare unit during the second world war Yoshio Shinozuka, a veteran of the top-secret Unit 731, told reporters he had done what no man should do in developing bubonic plague viruses and conducting vivisections on captives near Harbin in China. "These human beings were called logs. We said we have chopped one log, two logs," the frail and bespectacled 78-year-old said. "This unit cruelly murdered...