Chinese Police

At least four people were killed Monday when police and protesters clashed in China's restive Xinjiang region, the official New China News Agency said. Security forces in the western frontier city of Hotan opened fire on a crowd after people attacked a police station, set it on fire and took hostages, the report said. One police official, a security guard and two hostages were killed in the incident. Dilxat Raxit of the exile group World Uyghur Congress told Reuters news service that police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, which sparked the fighting.

BEIJING -- Chinese maritime police will be able to "board, inspect, seize and expel" foreign ships entering Chinese waters in the South China Sea under a newly approved provincial law that could further raise tensions in the area. State media reported Thursday that the provincial congress of Hainan, a large Chinese island near Vietnam, this week passed the law to allow more aggressive action against "foreign ships illegally entering the island province's sea areas. " The new rules would take effect Jan. 1. Hainan, a popular resort that advertises itself as China's Hawaii, has administrative jurisdiction over many low-lying islands in the South China Sea claimed by China.

Chinese police on Sunday detained more than 100 churchgoers who tried to hold an outdoor prayer service on a pedestrian bridge in Beijing after having failed to secure permission to open a church. Although it is not uncommon for police to raid unregistered churches, the bust in the very heart of the capital suggests that the dragnet around activists, bloggers, lawyers and intellectuals now includes Christian groups that in the past were able to slide under the radar. The 8-year-old Shouwang Church, with a congregation of about 1,000, has been popular among young professionals and academics.

BEIJING - The Chinese police chief who fled to a U.S. Consulate in February and set off a messy, sprawling political scandal involving murder was convicted Monday on charges of abuse of power, defection, bribe-taking and "bending the law for selfish ends" and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The relatively light sentence for Wang Lijun, who was accused of helping to cover up a killing committed by his boss' wife, had been foreshadowed last week. In their indictment, prosecutors at the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court had noted that the former Chongqing police chief had cooperated with authorities and had provided information against unspecified "others," which might result in leniency.

BEIJING - The Chinese police chief who fled to a U.S. Consulate in February and set off a messy, sprawling political scandal involving murder was convicted Monday on charges of abuse of power, defection, bribe-taking and "bending the law for selfish ends" and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The relatively light sentence for Wang Lijun, who was accused of helping to cover up a killing committed by his boss' wife, had been foreshadowed last week. In their indictment, prosecutors at the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court had noted that the former Chongqing police chief had cooperated with authorities and had provided information against unspecified "others," which might result in leniency.

Chinese police have raided brick factories scattered through a rural swath of Henan province and rescued 30 mentally disabled men who authorities say had been held as slave laborers. The unusually public raids Monday were prompted by a report on Henan provincial television by a journalist who had gone undercover posing as a disabled man at a train station, where he was grabbed by a recruiter and says he was sold to a brick factory. The case is an embarrassment for Chinese authorities, who have promised to stamp out slavery and the abuse of the disabled.

Haiti's interim prime minister accused ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of directing a wave of violence from exile, while 95 Chinese police arrived for their first U.N. peacekeeping role in the Western Hemisphere. The Chinese joined an overextended peacekeeping force that has struggled to keep order in Port-au-Prince. At least 55 people have been killed in clashes since Sept. 30, when Aristide's supporters took to the streets.

Chinese police seized nearly 2 million fake CDs and DVDs when they raided a factory in the country's largest crackdown on entertainment industry pirates, the official New China News Agency said. The high-tech operation could use 30 machines spread over 11 warehouses to churn out more than 300,000 fake discs in one night, the news agency quoted a top anti-piracy official as saying. The factory was in Guangzhou, capital of southeastern Guangdong province, near Hong Kong.

Chinese police arrested more than 60 demonstrators who chanted and waved fists in a march to the Tibetan regional government office today, five days after a pro-independence protest left at least 14 dead. About 2,000 people stood by as dozens of police and soldiers armed with AK-47 automatic rifles and automatic pistols rushed to the office compound and herded the marchers into trucks.

Chinese police interrogated three dissidents in separate, three-hour sessions and warned them not to try to set up an opposition political party, one of those interrogated said today. Ren Wanding, one of the dissident community's most prominent figures, said his Thursday night detention and questioning persuaded him to give up plans to register the China Democracy Party's Beijing branch. Police "told me, 'Now we're still under the Communist Party's leadership.

BEIJING - The Fox Tower in southeastern Beijing, a centuries-old fortress-like building with deep-set red windows and curving eaves, has stood through the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the reign of Mao Tse-tung and the crush of urban development. But for 45-year-old Sinologist Paul French, one historical event stands out above the rest: One morning in 1937, the mutilated corpse of a 19-year-old British woman was found at the base of the tower, her organs removed with surgical precision.

A crusading former police chief in the boomtown of Chongqing disappeared under unexplained circumstances and reportedly may have tried and failed to obtain political asylum at the nearest U.S. Consulate. Chongqing issued an unusual and cryptic statement Wednesday saying that Vice Mayor Wang Lijun was "highly stressed and in poor health … because of long-term overwork" and that he was "accepting vacation-style treatment. " The reports that he might have sought asylum in the United States were fueled by an unusual police presence at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu.

Chinese police have raided brick factories scattered through a rural swath of Henan province and rescued 30 mentally disabled men who authorities say had been held as slave laborers. The unusually public raids Monday were prompted by a report on Henan provincial television by a journalist who had gone undercover posing as a disabled man at a train station, where he was grabbed by a recruiter and says he was sold to a brick factory. The case is an embarrassment for Chinese authorities, who have promised to stamp out slavery and the abuse of the disabled.

At least four people were killed Monday when police and protesters clashed in China's restive Xinjiang region, the official New China News Agency said. Security forces in the western frontier city of Hotan opened fire on a crowd after people attacked a police station, set it on fire and took hostages, the report said. One police official, a security guard and two hostages were killed in the incident. Dilxat Raxit of the exile group World Uyghur Congress told Reuters news service that police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, which sparked the fighting.

Police in northwestern China investigating nitrate-tainted milk that killed three infants and sickened 36 others announced Monday that the chemical was intentionally added, according to New China News Agency. Nitrate is used for making dyes and curing meat but is not found in dairy products. It is not clear why nitrate was added to the milk. Police have arrested two suspects and two farms have been shut down. Most of those who fell ill were younger than 14 and the deaths involved infants younger than 2. China's dairy industry is still reeling from a milk scandal in 2008 in which melamine-tainted milk killed six infants and sickened 300,000 people.

Chinese police on Sunday detained more than 100 churchgoers who tried to hold an outdoor prayer service on a pedestrian bridge in Beijing after having failed to secure permission to open a church. Although it is not uncommon for police to raid unregistered churches, the bust in the very heart of the capital suggests that the dragnet around activists, bloggers, lawyers and intellectuals now includes Christian groups that in the past were able to slide under the radar. The 8-year-old Shouwang Church, with a congregation of about 1,000, has been popular among young professionals and academics.

Attackers hurled homemade bombs at government buildings early today in western China, wounding three officers, state media said, amid tightened security after an attack days before the Beijing Olympics opened and threats by a militant group to disrupt the Games. It was unclear how many assailants were involved in the predawn explosions in Kuqa, a county in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, but the official New China News Agency said police killed five suspects.

Two Australian men who were expelled from China for protesting a crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement said they were beaten by Chinese authorities. Eight others who stopped in Singapore on their way home said they were unharmed. The 10 Australians, detained Thursday, "picked quarrels, stirred trouble and preached the evil cult of Falun Gong," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the northwestern city of Urumqi, leaving 140 people dead and more than 800 injured. The unrest pitted Uighurs, a long-aggrieved Muslim minority, against the Han Chinese, who increasingly dominate the far-flung Xinjiang region. With the death toll climbing over the course of the day, the violence appeared to be far deadlier than that last year in the Tibetan region.