Students China

A teacher in central China was sentenced to two years in jail for forcing his students to eat cow dung, according to an official news report. The fourth-grade teacher forced his students to eat dung when they handed in assignments late, didn't pay attention in class or fought. Of his class of 34, only two with good grades and five who were related to him escaped punishment, the report said.

One of the two men charged in the slayings of two USC graduate students from China pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of murder in exchange for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty. He will instead serve two consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole. Bryan Barnes pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, and admitted the special circumstances of multiple murders and murder during the commission of a robbery in the killings of Ying Wu and Ming Qu, which rocked the USC community and drew international media attention in the victims' native China.

Chinese authorities Friday praised last year's military crackdown on the democracy movement and told thousands of schoolchildren that they owe their right to assemble in Tian An Men Square to the valor of the army. The comments came during International Children's Day celebrations held in Beijing's Tian An Men Square, the heart of massive student-led democracy protests crushed by the army last June 3-4.

BEIJING -- At precisely 9 a.m. Monday in Boston, Lingzi posted a photograph on her Chinese microblog page of a plate of bread and vegetables, next to a smiley face and a caption that read, “My wonderful breakfast!” It might have been her last meal. The 23-year-old Boston University graduate student, whose family has asked that her surname not be used, has been identified as the third fatality from the Boston Marathon bombing, which took place less than six hours later. Lingzi was among nearly 200,000 Chinese studying in the United States.

China rebuked the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday for voting to override President Bush's veto of legislation to protect Chinese students in the United States and warned that Sino-American relations would suffer if the bill became law. "We express great indignation and strongly condemn this hegemonic act by the U.S. House of Representatives," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jin Guihua told reporters. Jin met with the press before the Senate voted Thursday to uphold the veto.

A steady drizzle fell Wednesday on the sprawling campus of People's University, as thousands of Chinese students made their way mechanically through a second day of mandatory political re-education. A student of Chinese literature, asked about these classes, smiled sardonically and replied: "Look at the weather. Right now the weather looks about the way I feel about these classes."

In the first known revival of student protests in China since the army crushed a movement for democracy last month, about 300 Beijing University students gathered in a campus courtyard and mockingly sang Communist songs, students reported. The demonstrators said they were upset because work units have rejected some graduating seniors for jobs, citing their pro-democracy sentiments.

The Senate voted Wednesday to name a grassy plot near the Chinese Embassy in Washington "Tian An Men Square Park" in honor of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing. In addition to memorializing demonstrators who were killed by the Chinese army, said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.

The House voted Wednesday to suspend for three years the deportation of illegal immigrants from three nations recently torn by civil strife--China, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It is estimated by the government that there are as many as 800,000 Salvadoran immigrants, 200,000 Nicaraguans and 45,000 Chinese nationals currently living in the United States, either on temporary visas or illegally. About half of the immigrants from El Salvador are believed to be living in California.

An immigration official "had a change of heart" and decided to release on $5,000 bond a student from China who was detained when she arrived seeking asylum, her attorney's office said. Hoy Yu Yi, 27, and her fiance, Luo Jian Guang, 32, were taken into custody Aug. 7 when they arrived in San Francisco, saying they feared reprisals for anti-government protests if they return to their homeland.

A Chinese delegation of government officials and journalists was bused to the vacant Hillcrest High School in Riverside recently for a tour of the newly constructed $105-million campus. The event was hosted by Chino businessman David Li Chen, and guests included former California Secretary of Education Dave Long. But confusion over the Sept. 30 event's exact purpose has unleashed a flurry of claims and denials — covered breathlessly by the Chinese media — that a deal had been struck to turn the unopened high school into a school for students from China as well as the United States.

Six days after announcing a ban on students from SARS-affected countries attending summer classes at UC Berkeley, university officials announced Saturday that they will ease the ban and open the school to about 80 students from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. "We are not able to lift all of the limits," UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said in a statement to the media. "But we are able to lift some of them."

They were shy, scared and barely spoke a word of English in October when they arrived at Los Angeles International Airport from China. But after they studied English for five months at Hale Middle School in Woodland Hills, their language skills have improved markedly. And now, the youngest group of foreign exchange students between the United States and China can have conversations with their American peers during nutrition and lunch breaks.

A teacher in central China was sentenced to two years in jail for forcing his students to eat cow dung, according to an official news report. The fourth-grade teacher forced his students to eat dung when they handed in assignments late, didn't pay attention in class or fought. Of his class of 34, only two with good grades and five who were related to him escaped punishment, the report said.

When nine Cal Poly Pomona students wrote to China's top Communist last March seeking an explanation for last year's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, what they expected was a form letter in reply. Instead, they were invited to the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles on Friday to receive an extraordinarily detailed, 10-page answer from Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Communist Party in China.

Chinese authorities Friday praised last year's military crackdown on the democracy movement and told thousands of schoolchildren that they owe their right to assemble in Tian An Men Square to the valor of the army. The comments came during International Children's Day celebrations held in Beijing's Tian An Men Square, the heart of massive student-led democracy protests crushed by the army last June 3-4.

House Democrats angry about the Bush Administration's overtures to China predicted Tuesday that there will be strong bipartisan support when Congress tries to override President Bush's veto of a bill aiding Chinese students in this country. "I think we have enough to override," said California Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

Most signs that there once was boiling political fervor on the streets of Beijing have been all but erased. The city is like an air-brushed photograph in which key images have been eliminated. One begins to wonder if they ever existed. No one appears to dare to put up posters denouncing the June 4 military assault on Tian An Men Square and its peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators. Once, hastily posted messages and photocopied photos competed for attention with the government's martial-law orders.

A Beijing University student has been arrested in connection with a brief mid-May campus protest, while three leading dissidents have challenged the government with an open call for release of political prisoners. Peng Rong, 23, a biophysics graduate student, was arrested on campus Friday, according to university sources who spoke with Western reporters Sunday. Peng had addressed a small crowd on campus May 11, calling for an end to economic sanctions against China.

A secret document ferreted out from the Chinese Embassy in Washington by a defecting diplomat last week discloses that China is attempting to isolate and discredit Chinese student leaders and pro-democracy organizations in the United States.