China's walk-in-space (2)

This is no fake. At 5.40pm this afternoon, Zhai Zhigang became the first Asian to walk in space.

(Technically, Sunita Pandya Williams doesn't count. Although her father is an ethnic Indian, she was born in the United States. Sunita first spacewalked from the International Space Station in Jan 2007. The Indians proclaimed her as one of their own, but that's quite natural. Nationalistic pride.)

As the army colonel floated out of the Shenzhou-7 space craft, he turned and waved to a television camera broadcasting the event live on Chinese national television.

"I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the whole world," Zhai said, waving a Chinese flag in his right hand.