Here Comes the Sun: China Broadcasts Rising Sun Footage in Smog-Choked Beijing:

If you would like to catch a glimpse of the sun in the Chinese capital of Beijing, you can forget about simply looking up in the sky, as chances are the large, bright, warming bearer of life will be completely hidden behind a deep, dark and dangerous layer of disgusting pollution!

The pollution levels in one of the world's largest cities are so off-the-charts, the government has now started to broadcast recorded footage of a beautiful sunrise on large LED screens in Beijing's bustling Tianamen Square in an attempt to cheer up the put-upon and depressed population!

The nation has been grappling with out-of-control pollution levels for decades, as countless industries and billions of automobiles dump highly toxic levels of pollutants into the air. The air quality has worsened in recent days, as stagnated air combined with a cold snap, causing the population to burn more coal heaters to warm residences and businesses. The city's skyscrapers were completely hidden from view in the dense smog, and pedestrians had to wear surgical masks while out walking to keep from breathing the toxic soup into their lungs. The Chinese smog cloud can be seen from space, and often travels by wind to blight the air of neighboring countries Korea and Japan. 

Serious air and water pollution plagues virtually the entire country, as opportunities to advance the economy have taken precedence over protecting the quality of the natural environment. This has created a troubling environmental catastrophe that many experts forecast to only grow worse and will place the population at risk, in particular the very young and the elderly.

The Kill Switch: Is China Testing Internet Off Button?

Temporary blackouts today left millions of China’s Internet users unable to access many Chinese web sites as well as other unblocked foreign sites that they have been free to read in the past.

The outages come only a week after cyber-activist group Anonymous hacked almost five hundred Chinese web sites, including many of those belonging to the government. The mysterious outage was not limited to just China however, as similar blackouts were reported in Hong Kong as well as in Japan. At first, there was speculation that a powerful 8.9 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on Wednesday may have shifted undersea cables, creating the blackout. Chinese Telecom later confirmed that the earthquake had not damaged the cables.

Speculation then turned to perhaps a temporary blip in the system, but the Telecom insisted this was not the case, either. Which has many people around the world guessing that the Chinese government has made a dry run of specific protocols to knock out the Internet should civil unrest, descent and protests start to take place in the Communist nation. The measures could also be put into place in the event of a war.

Two weeks ago, rumors of a coup movement within China began to spread across the Internet. The Chinese government quickly moved in to squash the rumors, sparking arrests and the closing of several web sites affiliated with anti-government sentiment. Recent years have seen countries such as Iran and Egypt employ "kill switch" tactics to take down the Internet during times of strife and political turmoil.

Ghosts of the Gobi: Google Earth Photographs Strange Chinese Structures

Google Earth has released images of strange, mammoth structures in the Gobi desert of China that has the Internet community (as well as world governments) speculating just exactly what the superpower is up to!

The images show immense structures in the remote part of the desert where China carries out top secret military as well as nuclear testing. Some people have been overlaying the lines and grid patterns over maps of US cities, speculating that the nation is planning a surprise attack on the United States, Europe or Japan. When zoomed in, the carcasses of burned-up vehicles, planes and buildings can be seen in the disturbing images.

This is the second time in a number of days that the search giant has published photographs of Top Secret facilities. Last week it published pictures of Iranian facilities which the UN says may be used to develop nuclear weapons.

The satellite images were taken in October, 2010. Last year, startling images of the Chinese "Ghost Cities" were released. Massive, nearly-empty cities have been constructed throughout China, at a cost of trillions of dollars. A majority of these ghost cities, which could house millions of people, remain nearly empty of citizens, prompting wide-spread speculation about the stability of the Chinese economy. Added together with the images of the bizarre, Nazca-like lines and structures in the Gobi Desert, the mystery deepens. The images were released just as Chinese State run media released a scathing attack on US President Barack Obama, condemning his global economic and political policies.

The images show an immense network of lines and structures