WORLD
December 17, 2003 | Mark Magnier, Times Staff Writer
A Chinese court today sentenced two people to life in prison and 12 others to terms as long as 15 years for organizing a sex party in mid-September for several hundred Japanese tourists. "This is very harsh compared to similar cases," said Wu Ge, director of the Constitutional and Human Rights Center at Tsinghua University. "This case is very serious and on a large scale, and the government paid close attention to the case. The general public has been quite angry about this."
BUSINESS
December 17, 2007 | Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
The first time the pair of Shanghai private detectives came to this remote village known as China's pen capital, they ran into big trouble. They were on a mission, along with provincial police, to raid a factory and seize thousands of counterfeit Parker pens. They made it inside the building and found the bogus goods. But then a mob of locals arrived, hemming them inside and barricading the only street leading out of town.
WORLD
March 6, 2009 | Barbara Demick
Sun Yaoting was 8 when his father castrated him with a single swoop of a razor. The year was 1911, and China was in turmoil. Just a few months later rebels deposed the emperor, overturned centuries of tradition and established a republic. "Our boy has suffered for nothing," his father said, weeping and beating his breast, when he learned that the emperor had been overthrown. "They don't need eunuchs anymore!" Little did he know that the child nevertheless would earn a place in Chinese history.
WORLD
September 11, 2007 | Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
Her relatives had always described her as a colicky baby. When Luo Cuifen was 26, she found out a likely reason why. Doctors discovered more than two dozen sewing needles embedded in her body, some piercing her vital organs. X-rays of her head and torso look like a dart board. Doctors believe the needles were driven into her body when Luo was days old. One in the top of her skull could only have been stuck there when the bones in her head were still soft.
WORLD
June 27, 2008 | Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer
Lhamotso never learned to read and write, and she has few marketable skills other than the ability to milk a yak. Yet she can earn up to $1,000 a week these days, an unimaginable fortune for a Tibetan nomad. With the money, she has bought herself a shiny new Honda motorcycle. She and her husband gave up their tent for a house they built themselves with solar panels, a satellite dish and television. The worm, Lhamotso explains, "has changed our lives."
BUSINESS
December 24, 2008 | Tiffany Hsu and Don Lee
Melamine in Chinese-produced milk powder has sickened hundreds of thousands of children and added to a growing list of made-in-China foods banned across the globe. Now, some scientists and consumer advocates are raising concerns that fish from China may also be contaminated with the industrial chemical. China is the world's largest producer of farm-raised seafood, exporting billions of dollars worth of shrimp, catfish, tilapia, salmon and other fish. The U.S.
BUSINESS
July 27, 2009 | Don Lee and David Pierson
The United States and China today kick off talks in Washington that are expected to highlight Beijing's unease about its massive holdings in federal bonds, Washington's desire to reduce China's reliance on exports and the need for both sides to reach consensus on tackling climate change. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner will lead the American side in the two-day U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.
BUSINESS
October 22, 2009 | David Pierson
A Chinese company's gambit to drill for oil in U.S. territory demonstrates China's determination to lock up the raw materials it needs to sustain its rapid growth, wherever those resources lie. The state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, reportedly is negotiating the purchase of leases owned by the Norwegian StatoilHydro in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico, the source of about a quarter of U.S. crude oil production. China's push to enter U.S. turf comes four years after CNOOC's $18.5-billion bid to buy Unocal Corp.
BUSINESS
April 3, 2009 | Don Lee
Could the world's currency of choice have the face of Mao Tse-tung on it, not George Washington? Quixotic or not, the Chinese are preparing for that day. In a series of what might be called baby steps, Chinese officials recently have moved to globalize the yuan and promote its influence overseas, with Shanghai designated as command central.
BUSINESS
August 14, 2007 | Mark Magnier and Abigail Goldman, Times Staff Writers
Toy maker Mattel Inc. is expected to recall additional toys because of possible safety risks, just two weeks after issuing lead paint warnings about 1.5 million Chinese-made infant and preschool toys. The El Segundo-based company is likely to recall at least one kind of die-cast car, also made in China and also because of possible lead paint contamination, said a person who asked not to be named because the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has yet to make the recall official.