29 Chinese workers have been attacked and taken hostage by Sudanese militants at a remote work site in the volatile Sudan region.

Following the attack Sudanese forces immediately mounted a rescue mission in coordination with the Chinese embassy in Khartoum. China and Sudan share close economic and political relations, especially in the energy sector.

At this time it’s still not clear if the militants have released a list of demands while the state governor according to the official Xinhua News Agency said the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement attacked a road-building site in South Kordofan and seized the workers.

The SPLM is a guerrila force that has been fighting against the Sudanese government for control of the area, it’s members are made up of a minority ethnic group that controls much of South Sudan which became the world’s newest country six months ago after breaking away from Sudan.

The hostage taking situation adds already mounting tensions to the area where Sudan has accused South Sudan of arming pro-South Sudan militants in South Kordofan. The South Sudan government has called those accusations a “smokescreen” intended to justify the potential invasion of South Sudan in the future.

In the meantime the Chinese government has sent a large number of works to the volatile region over the last year to help with the emergency evacuation of at least 30,000 citizens from fighting in Libya.

Adding to China’s headache, the country has attempted to build a relationship with South Sudan over the last several years. South Sudan houses most of the countries oil fields and reserves.

29 Chinese Workers Captured By South Sudan Militants is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Chinese man, too cheap to buy a sheep dog has come up with a novel of way of getting his flock of sheep to do what he wants. By showing them a poster of a wolf.

Du Hebing told a Chinese newspaper that he took the picture by chance.

“After visiting Qinling Wild Animal Park, on the way home I saw a group of sheep walking along the road with a man holding a picture following behind them,” he said.

Du said he burst out laughing when he realised it was a picture of a wolf.

“The man was using the wolf picture to scare the sheep and drive them ahead – it was a really funny scene,” he said.

This modern day Bo Peep, might be onto something. We could put cardboard cutouts of Amy WInehouse in crack dens that will scare them off drugs for life.

Chinese Bo Peep: Keepin’ the flock in line is a post from: The Inquisitr

Because of this, the Chinese government is calling for stricter monitoring of “unhealthy” Internet games, recommending that games should automatically log off once a set number of hours of continuous playing is reached. In 2006, Internet game developers were told to install technology that asks, or should we say demand, real name and identification number.

Li Jianguo, vice-chariman of the National People’s Congress said that Internet-addicted teenagers account for about 10 percent of China’s web users. With more than 200 million Internet users in China, that’s millions of “unhealthy” young Chinese and a huge business for “unhealthy” game developers.

But at times, I can’t blame these kids. They need some relaxation after competing at a young age at the Olympics or after a hard-days work manufacturing our cool iPhones or after lip-synching backstage because you’re not cute enough to be shown to the world. Okay, but please, when you relax, no “unhealthy” online games. Go play Halo3, instead.

Millions of Chinese Kids Addicted to Online Games is a post from: The Inquisitr

All you do is dial in to the access number and speak. The automated system will confirm what you said in English, using its monotone computer voice, then repeat it back to you in Mandarin. Babel can also translate from Mandarin into English.

This may not have any earth-shattering applications, but it’s novel. And hey, you never know when you might have a random need to communicate with someone in Chinese (outside of ordering the Kung Pao, which you probably already know how to do).

The service is free for the U.S., the U.K., and Australia using the numbers below:

• U.S.
  +1-718-513-2969
  +1-718-513-2968
• U.K.
  +44-203-3557628
  +44-203-0516561
• Australia
  +61-390-015794
  +61-390-011061

Incidentally, Google has also just revealed an iPhone-friendly version of its web-based Translate tool, accessible via mobile browser at translate.google.com. I’ve never felt so linguistically enabled.

Happy translating!

Jajah Babel Offers Free Phone-Based Translations is a post from: The Inquisitr