Hebei

Twenty hours on a train. Standing-room only. No access to a bathroom. The Chinese have no shortage of indignities to complain about when it comes to traveling home on the nation's overburdened rail network come spring festival season. But it's the country's new online train ticketing system that has sparked the indignation of the traveling masses in the current run-up to the Year of the Dragon. Introduced several months ago in an effort to reduce long ticket queues, the website has instead buckled under the annual Lunar New Year crush as an estimated 250 million Chinese scramble to get home before the national holiday kicks off Monday.

Twenty hours on a train. Standing-room only. No access to a bathroom. The Chinese have no shortage of indignities to complain about when it comes to traveling home on the nation's overburdened rail network come spring festival season. But it's the country's new online train ticketing system that has sparked the indignation of the traveling masses in the current run-up to the Year of the Dragon. Introduced several months ago in an effort to reduce long ticket queues, the website has instead buckled under the annual Lunar New Year crush as an estimated 250 million Chinese scramble to get home before the national holiday kicks off Monday.

Chinese health authorities closed poultry markets in a province surrounding Beijing today after a woman died of bird flu, the first such death in the country in almost a year. The 19-year-old woman died of the H5N1 virus after coming into contact with poultry in Hebei province. In parts of the province, poultry markets were closed and the sale of live birds stopped as workers in masks sprayed disinfectant.

Two officials who were disciplined after tainted milk sickened tens of thousands of children in China have been reappointed to new posts, a state-run newspaper reported. The contamination, revealed in September, was one of China's worst food safety scandals. Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers have been punished as China's embarrassed leadership tries to restore consumer confidence. Six children died and nearly 300,000 were sickened by baby formula tainted with melamine, which can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

Chinese police Monday announced the first arrests in the spreading scandal over tainted milk powder as health officials reported that a second infant had died and 1,253 others had been sickened after ingesting the formula. The arrest of two brothers in Hebei province, home of the state-owned Sanlu Group that sold the contaminated product, was among a flurry of actions announced by authorities in the wake of the latest food safety problem to hit China. Officials have seized or recalled more than 10,000 tons of Sanlu formula and have ordered a nationwide inspection of fresh milk and cattle feed.

Hiring sorcerers. Lighting firecrackers. Following advice reputed to be from a mystical talking baby. While China's government promotes science, thousands of people are turning to superstition to fight SARS. The resort to tradition has prompted efforts by China's state press and the officially atheist communist government to discourage it.

China will build at least 14 golf courses, establish a golfing association and perhaps by next January play host to its first international tournament, an American consultant to some of the projects announced. Wade Phillips, Far East representative of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, said the Chinese also want to modify municipal soccer fields to double as practice driving ranges.

A series of predawn explosions ripped through workers' dormitories in a provincial capital Friday, killing at least 18 people and potentially dozens more, Chinese state media and residents said. Local television in Shijiazhuang, about 170 miles southwest of here, reported that the blasts were deliberately caused, the semiofficial China News Service said. The separate New China News Agency, the country's official news service, said the investigation was continuing.

A hailstorm in the northern Chinese province of Hebei killed 33 people and severely injured 418 recently, the China News Service said Sunday.

China Trade Group to Visit: A business delegation from the northern Chinese province of Hebei will visit Orange County on Tuesday looking for partners to help it spur the economy in the province. At a luncheon at UC Irvine, members of the delegation will tell local business leaders about the opportunities that exist for U.S. companies in Hebei.

Chinese police Monday announced the first arrests in the spreading scandal over tainted milk powder as health officials reported that a second infant had died and 1,253 others had been sickened after ingesting the formula. The arrest of two brothers in Hebei province, home of the state-owned Sanlu Group that sold the contaminated product, was among a flurry of actions announced by authorities in the wake of the latest food safety problem to hit China. Officials have seized or recalled more than 10,000 tons of Sanlu formula and have ordered a nationwide inspection of fresh milk and cattle feed.

Hiring sorcerers. Lighting firecrackers. Following advice reputed to be from a mystical talking baby. While China's government promotes science, thousands of people are turning to superstition to fight SARS. The resort to tradition has prompted efforts by China's state press and the officially atheist communist government to discourage it.

A series of predawn explosions ripped through workers' dormitories in a provincial capital Friday, killing at least 18 people and potentially dozens more, Chinese state media and residents said. Local television in Shijiazhuang, about 170 miles southwest of here, reported that the blasts were deliberately caused, the semiofficial China News Service said. The separate New China News Agency, the country's official news service, said the investigation was continuing.

China will build at least 14 golf courses, establish a golfing association and perhaps by next January play host to its first international tournament, an American consultant to some of the projects announced. Wade Phillips, Far East representative of Arnold Palmer Enterprises, said the Chinese also want to modify municipal soccer fields to double as practice driving ranges.

China opened its first international yacht club Friday, a $16-million complex that includes luxury villas and a shopping center. The China Qinhuangdao International Yacht Club opened in Qinhuangdao, a coastal city in northern China's Hebei province not far from the seaside resort where the nation's top leaders gather each summer.