When the iPad 2 was released last year, a skirmish broke out outside a Beijing Apple Store after a man believed to be a scalper was escorted away by security after trying to cut in line.

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In fact, in the course of a long career in the Foreign Service, Freeman served in capacities - notably as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and as the number two man in Embassy Beijing - where the job often is seen as representing the host government to his own, rather than the other way around.

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In Beijing he was ignored, just a man riding a thirdhand bicycle with a chubby boy on the back.

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Turning to the H7N9 bird flu virus, the death toll rose to seven on Monday with the death of a 64-year-old man in Shanghai, Beijing Times reports.

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Consider a young man, called Liu, who graduated from university in Beijing in 1990 with a maths degree and hopes of a career in accounting.

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Wiggins, who won individual pursuit gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics then added gold in individual and team pursuits in Beijing four years later, joins Geraint Thomas, Ed Clancy, Steven Burke and Andy Tennant for the five-man, four kilometre team pursuit.

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