China

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."

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When the eight-minute promotional video wrapped up, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris' review wasn't entirely flattering. The movie-making seemed amateurish in spots, and, in some shots, he and others would have benefited from a little makeup. Most important, the mayor told his staff, there weren't enough Asians in the video. "If we're going to try to attract members of the Asian business community, we need to have more Asians in there," Parris told staffers. The promotional video, which Parris requested be re-shot before being dubbed in Mandarin, is part of a larger strategy that Lancaster hopes will help it attract Chinese investment and create jobs in a region where unemployed is pegged at 17%. The city is sending business delegations to China, partnering with a Chinese sister city, and using a language tutor to teach bureaucrats Mandarin.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Thursday that China was likely to let its currency appreciate -- addressing a long-sought U.S. goal that could help boost American exports and create more jobs. Though Geithner didn't specify when he expected Beijing to loosen its grip on the yuan, his statement to the Senate Budget Committee struck an optimistic note against a background of deepening tensions with Beijing, partly over economic policy but also over arms sales to Taiwan and President Obama's plans to meet with the Dalai Lama.

Yin Shuilian is a fighter. For more than 11 years, the 45-year-old ethnic Korean tried to leave her hard life in China, where she toiled in fields and in restaurants, and make her way to South Korea. The move wasn't easy: She was repeatedly denied visas and cheated by unscrupulous brokers. At last, Yin arrived here in 1998 lugging not only her belongings but also $80,000 in debts to her friends and family. When her husband followed eight months later, the couple faced the challenge of their lives: They worked for six years to repay what they owed and begin a new life in their chosen homeland.

The Chinese government Saturday announced a series of harsh retaliatory measures in protest of the Pentagon's $6-billion arms sale to Taiwan, including a suspension of security exchanges and threatened sanctions on U.S. companies selling to Taiwan. "The U.S. decision seriously endangers China's national security and harms China's core interests," the Defense Ministry said in a statement attributed to spokesman Huang Xueping. Denunciations from Beijing over arms sales to Taiwan have an element of ritual about them, but the threat of sanctions on U.S. arms contractors is a new one. It remains to be seen whether China will follow through, given its need for commercial aircraft and aviation systems.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned China on Friday that it faced international pressure and increasing isolation unless it joined other world powers in sanctioning Iran to try to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The admonishment from Clinton came on the same day the Pentagon announced more than $6 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, a move certain to infuriate Beijing and add a new complication to the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Clinton, speaking at a leading French military academy in Paris, said that China and five other leading nations had been united in trying to persuade Iran to halt uranium enrichment that they fear is aimed at developing nuclear weaponry.

The telephones kept ringing with more orders and although Duan Yuelin kept raising his prices, the demand was inexhaustible. Customers were so eager to buy more that they would ply him with expensive gifts and dinners in fancy restaurants. His family-run business was racking up sales of as much as $3,000 a month, unimaginable riches for uneducated Chinese rice farmers from southern Hunan province. What merchandise was he selling? Babies. And the customers were government-run orphanages that paid up to $600 each for newborn girls for adoption in the United States and other Western countries.

The U.S.-Chinese relationship, already being tested by rising trade tension during President Obama's first year, has been rocked by new turbulence as the administration has sought to prove its commitment to human rights around the world. The two governments are at odds over planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, American overtures to Tibet and, now, the issue of Internet freedom that has been vividly raised by allegations against China from Google. After Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton complained in Cold War terms on Thursday about China's Internet intrusions, Chinese officials shot back Friday that her remarks were "harmful to Sino-American relations" and demanded that U.S. officials "respect the truth."

China's economy finished 2009 with a flourish, registering its greatest quarterly growth since the global financial crisis began more than two years ago. But underlying the 10.7% economic expansion in the final three months of the year from the same period in 2008 are signs of growing inflationary pressure that could send the price of food and other commodities higher. Government figures released Thursday showed China's consumer price index, a gauge of inflation, rose 1.9% year-over-year in December, building on an increase of 0.6% a month earlier.

Stocks tumbled Thursday after President Obama unexpectedly proposed new limits on the activities of the country's banks and worries intensified about China's effort to slow its economy. The Dow Jones industrial average sank more than 200 points, its worst drubbing in almost three months, leaving the blue-chip gauge in negative territory for the first time in 2010. Investors around the world were unnerved for a second day by China's action to rein in bank lending to prevent the country's economy from overheating.

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Thursday urged China to investigate cyber intrusions that led Google to threaten to pull out of that country -- and challenged Beijing to openly publish its findings. "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century," she said. Clinton said the U.S. and China "have different views on this issue, and we intend to address those differences candidly and consistently" as part of a cooperative relationship.