As one of Hong Kong's most outspoken democracy advocates, media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been on the receiving end of everything from rotten animal entrails to Molotov cocktails in the past 12 months.
Campaigners protesting China's annual dog meat festival were forcibly dispersed by unidentified men as they attempted to rally outside a government office.
A Chinese university has earned comparisons with Harry Potter's Hogwarts due to its bizarre castle campus, but local traditions supplied the magic at a Confucian-style ceremony for its degree graduates.
The world's tallest peak, Mount Everest, moved three centimetres (1.2 inches) to the southwest because of the Nepal earthquake that devastated the country in April.
Rescuers extended their search for victims of a Chinese cruise ship sinking to include a vast stretch of the Yangtze rive, as the confirmed death toll rose to 396.
US lawmakers wrote Communist leader Xi Jinping on anniversary of the Tiananmen square crackdown, saying China's continued rights abuse is a "barrier" to improved bilateral ties.
China will more than double the tax on tobacco to 11 percent, as authorities try to deter smoking in the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco.