The Chinese government is tightening adoption rules to combat child trafficking a day after eight people convicted of abducting or murdering children received sentences including the death penalty.

A bullet train crashed into another high-speed train in eastern China, killing at least 35 people, injuring 191 others and once again raising safety concerns about the country’s fast-expanding rail network.

Authorities in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai will prosecute 24 people for bribery and other crimes related to an apartment building fire that killed 58 people, state media reported today.

THE vast majority of transplanted organs in China come from executed prisoners, state media reported yesterday in a rare disclosure about an industry often criticised as opaque and unethical.

PROSTITUTES are considered more trustworthy in China than government officials and scientists, a survey of more than 3,000 respondents showed.

A sex theme park that featured explicit exhibits of genitalia and sexual culture is being demolished before it even opened, a Chinese government spokesman said today.

China has said 5,335 students died or remain missing from last year’s Sichuan earthquake, the first official tally for students in what became a politically charged issue because of allegations of shoddy school construction.

Mexico is temporarily suspending all non-essential activity of the federal government as the number of confirmed swine flu cases jumped.

A South Korean citizen is being tested for possible swine flu after travelling to Mexico, authorities said today.

The Great Wall of China is even greater than once thought.

China declared an official emergency today in eight provinces hit by a drought that has left nearly four million people without drinking water.

China’s top judge urged courts to focus on maintaining social stability to deal with the fallout from the global economic slowdown, state media said today amid growing fears of impending social tumult.

CHINA’s government estimates it will cost $147 billion (€99.3bn) to rebuild from the massive earthquake that struck the central part of the country in May, according to state media.

The capital of Tibet is set to host the Olympic torch relay, three months after violent anti-government rioting rocked the city.

Chinese soldiers using massive earth-moving equipment prepared to blast away part of a landslide today to ease the flooding threat from a river blocked up by the huge earthquake.

The father of an eight-year-old girl who completed a 55-day run across eastern China denied forcing her into the ordeal, saying she considered pounding the pavement for hours each day a form of play.

EIGHT kilograms of radioactive uranium has gone missing in China, delaying the verdict in a trial of four men charged with attempting to sell it on the black market, state media said yesterday.

Heavy rain lashing parts of China is hampering efforts to rescue 69 miners trapped in a flooded colliery, state media reported today.

China’s booming space programme has announced plans to launch its first astronomy satellite and take part in joint projects with Russia and France.

China is concerned about global warming but lacks the money and technology to significantly reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions that are worsening the problem, a top government scientist said today.

Winter temperatures in China’s capital have hit a 30-year high, it was reported today, amid concern over the country’s soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

CHINA will have 30 million more men of marriageable age than women in less than 15 years as a gender imbalance resulting in part from the country’s tough one-child policy becomes more pronounced.

China has defended its new adoption regulations for foreigners that favour middle-aged married couples without physical handicaps, saying that they were designed to help children and expedite adoptions, state media said today.

THE long arms of the world’s tallest man saved two dolphins in north-east China by reaching inside of them to remove plastic they had swallowed, state media reported yesterday.

The long arms of the world’s tallest man saved two dolphins in north-east China when he reached inside them to remove plastic they had swallowed, state media reported today.

Officials were meeting today to look at new steps to cool off China’s sizzling economy as its top planning agency called for tighter bank credit and curbs on construction, state media reported.

Beijing plans to start building a second international airport after the 2008 Olympics, it is reported.

Beijing police are telling the city’s residents to turn in illegal guns or face prison amid a national crackdown on unlicensed firearms, a news report said today.

The Asia-wide death toll from Tropical Storm Chanchu rose to 91 today, with nearly 250 Vietnamese fisherman still missing at sea and 28 reported dead as the tempest moved offshore again after battering southern China.

A TOXIC spill flowing toward China’s southern business capital of Guangzhou has been stopped by a dam as the government rushed to protect water supplies to the city of seven million.

A MAN died of bird flu in one of the affluent neighbourhoods of Indonesia’s capital, while a self-employed vendor in a remote Chinese village was sickened by the disease, authorities said yesterday.

A man died of bird flu in one of the glitziest neighbourhoods of Indonesia’s capital, while a self-employed vendor in a remote Chinese village was sickened by the disease, authorities said today.

After three days of searching, rescuers at a collapsed coal mine in northeast China still couldn’t agree on the number of miners missing – further underlining the government’s lack of success in improving safety in the disaster-plagued industry.

A long stretch of river carrying toxins from a chemical plant explosion today flowed into a Chinese city where authorities shut off water supply to millions of residents for fear that the pollution could cause cancer.

A Chinese city of 3 million people has set off panic-buying of bottled water by announcing its water system will be shut down for four days to check for contamination from a chemical plant explosion.

China’s endangered pandas are having a baby boom, with breeding centres reporting a record-high 25 births this year through artificial insemination, it is reported today.

A cache of 3,000 grenades, artillery shells and other bombs believed to have been left by Chinese forces at the end of the Second World War has been unearthed in a city in China’s north-east.

International air travel would virtually stop if bird flu triggered a lethal human pandemic in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia’s health minister said today, as Chinese media reported plummeting poultry sales in Beijing and Shanghai.

Authorities evacuated more than one million people as Typhoon Matsa slammed into the coast of southeast of China’s biggest city today, killing at least one person and knocking down street signs and buildings.

A mystery disease that killed 17 farmers who handled sick pigs or sheep in China’s south west is unrelated to bird flu or SARS and is probably caused by bacteria carried by pigs, state media reported today.

Power use in Beijing has hit a record high as millions of people in northern China turned up air conditioning amid a heatwave that is scorching the region with temperatures up to 42 degrees Celcius, news reports said today.

MORE than 42,000 Chinese government employees were investigated for corruption and negligence this year, but fewer than 3,000 were higher ranking officials, a newspaper reported yesterday.

China says it plans to make it easier to jail producers of counterfeit movies, music and other goods, responding to pressure from other governments to toughen penalties against rampant product piracy.

How do you remove a stray cockroach jammed in the ear? It seems you get the creature drunk!