Chinese actress feeds Kenya's orphan elephants

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Chinese actress Li Bingbing is in Kenya to bring attention to the growing problem of elephants slaughtered for the international ivory trade.

Bingbing on Tuesday urged governments and consumers to combat the illegal wildlife trade. She told a news conference that Africa's poaching crisis raises major concerns about the survival of elephants and rhinos in Kenya. She noted that such deaths are linked to organized crime and the funding of armed militias.

Former NBA star Yao Ming has also visited Kenya to raise awareness about the ivory trade. Most African ivory is shipped to Asia, especially to China.

The United Nations says the number of elephants illegally killed in Africa has doubled in 10 years.

Bingbing has starred in high-profile English-language films, including "Resident Evil" and "The Forbidden Kingdom."

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Chinese grad student confirmed as Boston victim

BEIJING (AP) — She was a food fan, eager for culinary discoveries. In her last microblog update the morning before the Boston Marathon blasts, the Chinese graduate student identified as the attack's third victim posted a photo of ciabatta-like bread chunks and fruit.

"My wonderful breakfast," Boston University statistics student Lu Lingzi wrote.

In her early 20s, she often shared photos of her home-prepared meals on her Twitter-like Chinese Sina Weibo account — a blueberry-covered waffle one day, spinach sachettini with zucchini on another.

They were almost always served in a shallow, blue-patterned bowl. In September, she showed off her first two-dish meal — stir-fried broccoli and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, often cooked by Chinese students learning how to live on their own abroad.

Boston University confirmed Wednesday that Lu was studying mathematics and statistics at the school and was due to receive her graduate degree in 2015.

It said she and two friends had been watching the Boston Marathon near the finish line. One of the friends, also a BU student, was injured while the other was unharmed, it said.

Chinese state media said Lu was from the northeastern city of Shenyang.

Reports of her death drew an outpouring of comments and condolences from friends and strangers, both on Lu's Sina Weibo account — with nearly 20,000 comments as of Wednesday — and on their own. Her former neighbor in Shenyang, Zhang Xinbo, lamented how the news brought home the tragedy of what he had considered a faraway event.

"I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind. Now, she's becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything," he wrote in a blog. "I think of her loved ones, and I don't know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope."

Many comments reflect a growing awareness that the burgeoning number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years has opened them up to dangers ranging from mundane street crime to terrorist attacks.

"Nearly 12 years after Sept. 11, more and more people have realized terrorists are the global enemy. They not only attack Americans but also Chinese, regardless of nationality and race," the well-known blogger and author Li Chengpeng wrote on his microblog site.

Chinese are the largest contingent of foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities. Last year, nearly 200,000 Chinese were enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education, and Massachusetts had almost 10,000 Chinese students on its college campuses, according to the Institute of International Education.

The detonations near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 170. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said a Chinese student from Chengdu was among the gravely wounded.

Lu's former high school teacher, Yang Yongkun, told the Shenyang Evening News that Lu had left a deep impression on him.

"This child is particularly smart and simple," the newspaper quoted Yang as saying.

According to Lu's profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn, she was awarded "excellent student" at the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she graduated last year. It said she held jobs or internships at the Beijing offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consultancy and at Dongxing Securities Co. during her undergraduate years and spent a semester at the University of California Riverside.

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Associated Press writer Mark Pratt in Boston contributed to this report.

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Chinese marathon bomb victim remembered as bright

BOSTON (AP) — Less than 24 hours before she died, Lu Lingzi sent an exuberant email to a professor after learning she had passed part of a major final exam.

"I am so happy to get this result!" she wrote. "Thank you very much."

Lu was killed Monday during the Boston Marathon explosions, according to a statement from Boston University. She was a graduate student studying mathematics and statistics and scheduled to receive her graduate degree in 2015.

Lu was at the finish line of the race with two friends from BU. One, Danling Zhou, had surgeries Monday and Tuesday and is in stable condition at Boston Medical Center, the university's statement said. The other was unharmed.

On Monday morning, Lu put the finishing touches on a group research project she was planning to present at a statistics conference.

She also posted a photo of the breakfast — bread chunks and fruit — she ate the morning she died.

"My wonderful breakfast," she wrote.

Lu was a vivacious chatterbox who had lots of friends on campus, said Tasso Kaper, chair of the mathematics and statistics department, whose face lit up talking about his former student.

"The word bubbly — that's kind of a corny word — but that describes her very well," Kaper said.

Lu loved the springtime and kept asking when the trees would bloom in Boston.

"She was very interested in the flowers," he said. "Spring is a very important time of year for her."

Lu, 23, often shared photos of her home-prepared meals online, including a blueberry-covered waffle. They were almost always served in a shallow, blue-patterned bowl.

In September she showed off her first two-dish meal, stir-fried broccoli and scrambled eggs with tomatoes, often cooked by Chinese students learning to live on their own abroad.

She was described as an exceptional student and bright young scientist at Boston University, where she had been enrolled for about a year. She was in the process of searching for a summer internship with her adviser.

Lingzi would have had just one course left to complete in order to graduate.

Lingzi attended the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she graduated last year once got a perfect score on a differential equations exam. Her LinkedIn profile said she was awarded "excellent student" at the school and that she held jobs or internships at the Beijing offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu consultancy and at Dongxing Securities Co. during her undergraduate years. She also spent a semester at the University of California, Riverside.

Chinese state media said Lu was from the northeastern city of Shenyang.

Lingzi's closest friends in Boston did not learn that she had been killed until Tuesday evening, when they were informed by faculty members. Fellow graduate students are struggling to process her death.

"Many of them are still in shock and disbelief," Kaper said.

A memorial service will be held at the campus chapel Wednesday evening. There was a small, private gathering of friends and faculty at the math department early Wednesday to "begin the long grieving process," Kaper said.

Reports of her death drew comments and condolences from friends and strangers, both on Lu's Sina Weibo account — with nearly 20,000 comments as of Wednesday — and on their own. Her former neighbor in Shenyang, Zhang Xinbo, lamented how the news brought home the tragedy of what he considered a faraway event.

"I saw her grow up, and a few scenes from the past are flashing through my mind. Now, she's becoming a girl, a bit Westernized, but a loud bang has changed everything," he wrote in a blog. "I think of her loved ones, and I don't know how they are coping with this painful news, while still searching for any thread of hope."

Many comments reflect a growing awareness that the burgeoning number of Chinese students and elsewhere in recent years has opened them up to dangers ranging from mundane street crime to terrorist attacks.

"Nearly 12 years after Sept. 11, more and more people have realized terrorists are the global enemy. They not only attack Americans but also Chinese, regardless of nationality or race," the well-known blogger and author Li Chengpeng wrote.

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Tang reported from Beijing.

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Local paper names Chinese victim in Boston blasts

BEIJING (AP) — The third person killed in the Boston Marathon bombings was a Chinese graduate student at Boston University originally from China's northeastern city of Shenyang, a state-run Chinese newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Shenyang Evening News said on its official Twitter-like microblog account that the victim's name is Lu Lingzi. An editor at the newspaper said that Lu's father confirmed his daughter's death when reporters visited the family home. The editor declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to foreign media.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Consulate General in New York are not releasing the victim's name at the request of the family. But on Tuesday, Boston media quoted a Chinese Consulate General official as saying Chinese national Lu Lingzi was missing in the wake of Monday's bombings that killed three and wounded more than 170 people.

In the Chinese-language world of social media, people have been sharing their condolences on what is believed to be Lu's microblogging account hosted by Sina Weibo, which was last updated Monday with a breakfast photo. By early Wednesday afternoon, more than 14,000 comments were left on the page.

Friends contacted through Sina Weibo have largely declined to speak to media about Lu, saying they were adhering to the wishes of Lu's family.

Lu graduated from a Shenyang high school and studied international trade at Beijing Institute of Technology before she went to the United States to study statistics as a graduate student at Boston University, according to media reports, Lu's friends and her own Facebook page.

Chinese are the largest contingent of foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities. Last year, nearly 200,000 Chinese were enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions, and Massachusetts had almost 10,000 Chinese students on its college campuses, according to the Institute of International Education.

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Consulate: Chinese national killed in Boston

NEW YORK (AP) — The Chinese Consulate in New York says a Chinese national was among those killed in the marathon bombings in Boston, but did not identify the person. Boston University said the victim was one of its graduate students.

The Consulate also said in a statement Tuesday that another Chinese citizen was wounded and was in stable condition following surgery.

Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings, a Hong Kong-based broadcaster with ties to the Chinese government, said the deceased was a woman from the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang who was a graduate student in statistics at Boston University.

A team led by Deputy Consul General Ruiming Zhong was in Boston to investigate the situation and assist relatives of the victims, the consulate's statement said.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that relatives have requested that the deceased not be identified.

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Study: Mexican wages fall below Chinese levels

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is looking to penetrate the Chinese market after a new report suggested that Mexican labor costs have fallen below those of China.

President Enrique Pena Nieto visited Hong Kong on Friday, and said "I am convinced that Mexican products should take advantage of the dynamism of China's markets."

Just a decade ago, Mexico's prospect of exporting much to China seemed distant. Mexican average labor costs were then almost double China's.

But a report by a chief economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch this week estimated that Mexico's labor costs are now 19.6 percent lower than China's.

The study by chief economist Carlos Capistran cites the bank's own estimates and official data indicating that a big increase in China's costs have turned the balance.

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A diplomatic star is born in Chinese first lady

BEIJING (AP) — Glamorous new first lady Peng Liyuan has emerged as Chinese diplomacy's latest star, cutting a very different profile from her staid predecessors on her debut official visit abroad to Russia.

A well-known performer on state television, Peng featured prominently in Sunday's state media coverage of husband and President Xi Jinping's activities in Moscow, Xi's first state visit since assuming the presidency earlier this month.

Peng watched song and dance routines at a performing arts school on Saturday, but did not join in as some media reports had suggested she might. Xi's trip continues this week with stops in Tanzania, South Africa and Congo, during which Peng is expected to hold other public events.

Chinese newspapers on Saturday ran images of Xi and Peng descending arm-in-arm from their aircraft after arriving in Moscow on Friday, and state broadcaster CCTV ran a report on its main Sunday news broadcast about her visit to the school.

The popular Beijing News tabloid ran a full page of items on Peng's appearances on Sunday, alongside a photo of her arriving at a speech Xi gave Saturday dressed in an elegant Chinese-style silk tunic and skirt.

"In her role as first lady on this visit abroad, Peng Liyuan is exhibiting China's soft power," the paper quoted Wang Fan, head the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, as saying.

"As a singer and artist and a long-term advocate for poverty relief and other causes, Peng has an excellent public image," Wang said.

Much of the coverage focused on her personal style, with a report on the mass-market sina.com website noting with satisfaction that the black leather clutch she paired with the outfit was made to order by a Chinese firm in the southwestern city of Chengdu, a flattering contrast with prominent Chinese female politicians scorned publicly for appearing decked head to toe in foreign designer brands.

"In practical terms, this is an important show of support for China's domestic industries, but in the larger sense, it should raise national self-respect and confidence," read a posting on China's popular Weibo microblogging service left by Lin Zhibo, Gansu provincial bureau chief of the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily.

The wives of China's top officials have traditionally been mostly invisible at home and attracted little attention while accompanying their husbands on state visits abroad. And the contrast is even sharper in the case of Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, who was widely hated and later imprisoned for her role as leader of the radical Gang of Four that mercilessly persecuted political opponents during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

More recently, former Premier Wen Jiabao's wife, Zhang Peili, became known for her role in the country's gem trade and was never seen in public with her husband.

Peng, 50, is famed for her CCTV performances and serves as an ambassador for the World Health Organization, but largely retired from public life after Xi was made China's leader-in-waiting in 2007. While sometimes described as a folk singer, she holds the rank of major general in the People's Liberation Army and is best known for her stirring renditions of patriotic odes, often while wearing full dress uniform.

Peng and Xi have one daughter, a student at Harvard who remains out of the limelight.

Peng works on tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS outreach for the WHO. She made headlines last year by appearing alongside Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as part of a campaign to discourage smoking, a high-profile cause in a country where about two-thirds of men smoke.

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'Chinese Girl' painting coming home to SAfrica

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Bonhams auction house says Vladimir Tretchikoff's iconic "Chinese Girl" painting is coming home to South Africa after some 60 years in a private Chicago home.

The picture of the beauty with a green-hued skin and ruby-red lips, said to be one of the most reproduced in the world, sold for 982,050 British pounds — double the expected price — at a Bonhams London auction Wednesday. Bonhams says it is the highest price paid for a Tretchikoff or any work by a South African artist.

Diamond jewelry magnate Laurence Graff bought the painting and will display it at the Delaire Graff wine and luxury lodges estate in the Cape winelands.

Tretchikoff was inspired by a Cape Town launderette worker and sold the painting while touring the United States in the 1950s.

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