WORLD
May 4, 2013 | By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times
MASHANG VILLAGE, China - The last time they saw their father, Hong Yunke, he was leaving home, hauling his wooden medicine chest, on a frigid December morning in 1967. "I'm going to treat a patient and collect money," Hong told his son, 12, and his daughter, 9. "I'll be back soon. " Hong was what the Chinese call a barefoot doctor, a self-educated healer who treated the sprained ankles of farmers for 20 cents, enough in those days for two pork buns. His wife, unable to endure the poverty, had left him to raise the children on his own. No matter.
WORLD
May 3, 2013 | By Don Lee
BEIJING -- Feasting on strips of mutton dropped in a simmering pot is a popular dining pastime in China, but what if the meat served is actually made of rat? That may be on the minds of diners after the latest stomach-churning food scandal to hit China. Authorities said that traders bought rat, fox, mink and other uninspected meats -- and after adding red coloring and other chemicals -- sold them as lamb rolls for markets in Shanghai and neighboring Jiangsu province. Police arrested 63 suspects and seized 10 tons of meats and additives, but not before the operation had sold about $1.6 million worth of fake meat over the last four years.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 2, 2013 | From a Los Angeles Times staff writer
Mike Gray, an author, activist and documentarian who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for "The China Syndrome," the provocative 1979 film about a cover-up at a nuclear power plant, died Tuesday of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home, his family said. He was 77. Gray developed the "China Syndrome" story after reading books and interviewing scientists about the dangers of nuclear power. No one knew how timely the subject would prove. A nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania went into partial meltdown barely three weeks after the opening of the movie, which starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas and became a box-office and critical success.
OPINION
April 30, 2013 | By Suzanne Nossel
China employs an army of censors. As many as 50,000 well-trained monitors police the Internet, and 12 government departments are empowered to search and seize information and shut down users and sites. They work fast: A recent study conducted by two American computer scientists found that 30% of banned posts are removed within half an hour of posting, and 90% within 24 hours. International corporations must abide by the censors or forgo doing business in China. Paramount Pictures, for example, agreed in April to cut scenes from a new Brad Pitt movie to remove an unflattering reference to China.
OPINION
April 26, 2013 | By David Schenker
Security in the Forbidden City across the street from the Great Hall of the People was tight last month when Li Keqiang was installed as premier of China. But the uniformed guards weren't armed with automatic weapons. Instead, they were equipped with fire extinguishers to prevent would-be protesters from self-immolating. China these days is consumed with concerns about domestic stability. Notwithstanding this internal preoccupation, the Middle Kingdom's increasing appetite for Persian Gulf oil has sparked unprecedented Chinese interest in the Middle East.
WORLD
April 20, 2013 | By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times
BEIJING - When their beds began to shake and the dishes clattered off the shelves, people knew what to do this time. The temblor Saturday morning in Sichuan province was a lesser replay of a killer quake that struck along the same fault line almost five years ago. Still, it was severe enough to leave at least 179 dead and more than 8,000 injured by Sunday, Chinese authorities reported. The 8 a.m. jolt roused residents from their beds, and many people ran into the streets in their pajamas, according to reports from the scene.