EXPANDING TO ASIA: The New York Times started a Chinese-language website Thursday, generating so much interest in the country that thousands flocked to two of its microblog accounts.

OFFLINE: The Times’ accounts on two microblog sites hosted by the popular Chinese web portals, Sina and Sohu.com, were offline for several hours Thursday, but it was not clear if government interference was the reason.

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CONTEXT: The Times joins the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and several other English-language news titans in offering news in Chinese to tap into the huge China market and break the government’s controls on information.