China :: Commentaries

BEIJING - An arrest warrant was approved on Tuesday for nine members of a gang who killed a mentally-disabled man and then used his death as a pretext to extort money from a mine boss.Prosecutors said that seven members of the gang were charged with intentional homicide, and two others, including the lone female suspect, surnamed Ri, were accused of fraud.Prosecutors in East China's Jiangxi province said that five suspects, including the leader of the gang, surnamed Lu, bought a young man with mental-health problems for 5,200 yuan ($800) from a human trafficker in March.The woman suspect Ri helped fabricate fake identification for the man, according to Dongxiang county police.With the documents, the five suspects took him to apply for a job at the Dongxiang County Lead and Zinc Mining Co Ltd, media reports said.On March 11, only a few days after getting injury insurance, two suspects, surnamed Zhang and Yang, took the young man to a 37-meter-deep vent and pushed him down.He died on...

Milk products that were previously suspected of sickening 251 pupils in northwest China's Shaanxi Province were found to be free of toxins or other potential contaminants, a local government commission said Tuesday. The food safety commission in the city of Yulin's Yuyang District said that test results have shown that the Mengniu-brand milk drank by the sickened students meets national health and safety standards. The tests found no pathogens in the milk, nor in the students' vomit and excreta, the commission said in a statement. Further investigations into the cause of the incident are still under way. The 251 students of the Yuhe Town Central Primary School fell ill after drinking milk at breakfast on Friday. Sixteen of them showed signs of poisoning, including fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea. All of the sickened students were discharged from the hospital by Saturday after receiving medical treatment. The milk was purchased by the district's education bureau and d...

File photo of supporters for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal rallying outside the Federal Court building May 17, 2007 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Today the federal appeals court ruled that death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal should get a new sentencing hearing, according to Reuters. (Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) The federal appeals court ruled that death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal should get a new sentencing hearing, according to Reuters on Tuesday. The court found that the instructions given to the jury in 1982 could have been misleading. Specifically, the death-penalty instructions could have caused jurors to believe that they needed to unanimously decide if there were mitigating circumstances, which would spare his life. In December 1981, Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting and killing Daniel Faulkner, a Philadelphia police officer. Former Black Panther Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death. The Associated Press noted that if one juror found that mitigating circumstances outwei...

New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton waves to the crowd as he boards the bus with his wife, NDP Member of Parliament Olivia Chow, following the NDP's campaign kickoff event at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on March 26. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty Images) The New Democratic Party is quickly overtaking the Liberals which would deny Conservatives of a majority in the House of Commons, according to a new poll projection released on Monday. EKOS Research, which offers seat projections based on its opinion poll results from last Friday to Sunday, predicts that the NDP would secure 100 seats in the upcoming May 2 general election, almost a threefold increase from its current 36 seats. If the level of support remains unchanged until the election, the NDP would come in second in seat count to the Conservatives, who are projected to gain 131 seats, 12 seats fewer than its current 143-seat holding in the House. Under that scenario, with the support from the Liberalswho are projected t...

BEIJING - China's top quality regulator said Tuesday that quality authorities had handled 19,933 cases concerning intellectual property right (IPR) infringement and the production and sales of fake products since last October. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said in a circular that it had investigated into 214,000 companies producing automobile parts and mobile phones, among others. Last October, quality authorities across the country started a campaign to combat intellectual property right infringement and the production and sales of fake or poor-quality products.

BEIJING - China's State Council, the country's cabinet, said Tuesday that the efforts of local governments to regulate the real estate market had seen some preliminary results. "Speculative housing demands have been contained, and the sales volume of new and existing homes dropped month on month while home prices stayed generally stable," said the State Council in a statement released Tuesday. Related readings: Cities miss home price deadlineThe State Council had sent eight inspection groups to 16 provinces, regions or municipalities to supervise their work of regulating the home markets from April 10 to 21. The inspection groups reported that local governments had attached great importance to rectifying the real estate market, and all the 16 provinces, regions or municipalities have taken concrete measures in implementing the central government's policy to regulate the country's home market. During the inspection, the inspection groups found that home price t...

BEIJING - The People's Bank of China (PBOC), China's central bank, plans to expand its pilot plan for using the currency of renminbi in cross-border trade to more regions this year, an official with the bank said Tuesday."The PBOC aims to expand its pilot plan nationwide this year and introduce a trial project for cross-border renminbi settlement," Li Bo, director of the Monetary Policy Bureau of the PBOC, said at a meeting held by the China Banking Association.The Chinese government first allowed cross-border renminbi settlement trials in July 2009 to encourage the internationalization of the Chinese currency.In June of last year, the government expanded the project to 20 provincial regions."The objective of cross-border renminbi trade settlement is to make trading and investing easier and change the currency into a feasible market option through the introduction of supporting policies," Li said.According to official figures, total cross-border renminbi tra...