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A 40,000-year-old archaeological site in northern China has unearthed the earliest evidence of ochre processing in east Asia, researchers say. The site was discovered at Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin, in the northern Chinese province of Hebei. Ochre pieces and tools found in the area suggest that the clay earth pigment was processed there, via grinding and pounding, to produce powders of different colours and grain sizes. Near lumps of ochre, archaeologists unearthed a hammer stone as well as a flat limestone slab that showed signs of battering. In a study published in the journal Nature, the team has dated...

The largest metropolis in northern China’s Hebei Province barred its 11 million residents from leaving city confines on Jan. 7 in an effort to curb the spread of the CCP virus which causes COVID-19. Locals in a nearby city said in interviews with The Epoch Times that they were under lockdown, though authorities did not publicly announce the decision. Hebei is the province that surrounds China’s capital of Beijing. Many migrant workers in Beijing come from Hebei. Beijing’s food and other critical supplies are also mostly sourced from the province. Shijiazhuang is the capital of Hebei. On Thursday evening, the...

Three children and a teacher have been stabbed to death in an attack on a kindergarten in eastern China. A man armed with a knife forced his way into the nursery at about 4pm yesterday by posing as a parent, as mothers and fathers were picking up their children, according to residents who live nearby. About 20 pupils and staff were injured, two of the children seriously, in the attack in a suburb of Zibo in Shandong province, eastern China. Police rushed some of the wounded from the Boshan District Experimental Kindergarten to hospital before ambulances had arrived. 'Three kids...

Authorities in China's Hebei province have arrested more than 90 members of the "underground" Catholic Church, including Bishop Yao Liang, the Cardinal Kung Foundation reports. Bishop Yao, the head of the Xiwanzi diocese, who had previously been taken into custody last March, was arrested on July 30. A priest of the same diocese, Father Li Huisheng, was arrested on August 1. When some Catholic faithful protested the arrests, and asked for information about the whereabouts of the jailed clerics, policy mobilized a force of 500 to jail 90 members of the underground Church on August 2. The arrests followed a...

BEIJING, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- Five miners have been killed and one is still missing in China's second coal mine blast within a week, this one in north China's Hebei Province. Six miners were doing maintenance in the mine in Zhangjiakou city when the gas explosion occurred at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency reported Friday. The provincial coal mine safety bureau said the mine, which produces 60,000 tons of coal per year, was operating without a license.

Beijing (AsiaNews) -- Monsignor Julius Jia Zhiguo, age 70, underground Bishop of Zhengding (Hebei, northern China), was arrested outside his home yesterday at 3:30 p.m. (local time). News of his arrest came from the Kung Foundation. Bishop Jia was taken away by two men to an unknown destination. Government officials had warned the churchman in advance of the arrest and had ordered him to tell people that he was being taken away for medical tests. Msgr Jia is currently not ill, nor is he in need of any medical treatment. Msgr Jia has been a bishop since 1980 and has...

BEIJING (AFP) - People in Beijing were warned to stay indoors as the Chinese capital was shrouded in yellow smog with pollution reaching dangerous levels. "Under these polluted conditions, we propose that the majority of citizens reduce their time outdoors and avoid breathing this seriously polluted air," the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau said in a warning posted on its website. Beijing's air quality has been at the lowest level for the past two days with the air "seriously polluted," the bureau said. Experts said the capital was experiencing a heat inversion, where warmer air in the atmosphere was keeping the...