China's longest-serving female political prisoner, a Tibetan, has been allowed to leave for the United States after 12 years in prison. Buddhist nun Ngawang Sangdrol, 25, who arrived in the US on Friday 28 Mar 2003, has been granted medical parole by the Chinese government, according to Mr John Kamm, director of the San-Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation. (Straits Times 30 Mar 2003)(14) 

  China yesterday saw 76-year-old President JIANG Zemin hand over his post as Communist Party chief to Vice-President HU Jintao. Five other top leaders, all but one in their 70s, also stood down from key posts - in the first orderly transfer of power in the party's history. (Straits Times 15 Nov 2002) (1)

  Over 60 people were injured after a makeshift stage collapsed at a concert by Hongkong singer-actor Jacky CHEUNG in central China, a local official and Web sites reported yesterday. (Straits Times 21 Oct 2002) (L12) 

  A stuntman's attempt to leap over a stretch of the Great Wall on his bicycle turned fatal when he lost his grip on its handles in mid-air and fell, missing the safety net and landing on the ground instead. WANG Jiaxiong's skull was shattered and he died later in hospital, the Beijing Youth Daily reported yesterday. (Straits Times 5 Oct 2002) (1)

  A jealous snackshop owner in China's eastern city of Nanjing was sentenced to death yesterday for killing at least 42 people by lacing a competitor's food with rat poison, court officials said. CHEN Zhengping, 29, was arrested two weeks ago after hundreds of people fell ill from eating breakfast snacks bought from a shop in the Tangshan township in the city. (Straits Times 1 Oct 2002) (3)

  China's top leaders have ordered an investigation into a mass poisoning case in Nanjing that is believed to have killed at least 41 people and left hundreds more ill. Officials have been sent to the small industrial town of Tangshan to investigate, Xinhua news agency reported. (Straits Times 15 Sep 2002) (4) 

  More than a million civilians, troops and officials in cities and counties near Dongting Lake and the Xiang River were on high alert yesterday, manning dykes around the clock, watching for the slightest breach as a swelling tide threatened one of China's most densely populated regions. (Straits Times 24 Aug 2002) (1)

  More than 10 million people were under threat from potentially devastating floods yesterday as China's massive Dongting Lake surged above danger levels, with more torrential rain on the way. (Straits Times 21 Aug 2002) (6)

  China has announced plans to issue special visas to 'high-profile foreign visitors" considered helpful to the country's development, a move that reflects its eagerness to tap foreign expertise to speed up economic growth. Under the new entry rules, seven categories of foreigners - including academics, researchers, senior managers and technical professionals - can apply for one of two categories of visas which allow them to enter China as often as they like for two to five years and remain in the country for up to five years. (Straits Times 12 Jul 2002) (3)

  Two teenage boys have been arrested for starting a fire that killed 24 people in an unlicensed Beijing Internet cafe last weekend. They started the fire because they had been banned from the cafe, officials said yesterday. The boys argued with staff at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe two weeks before Sunday's early morning blaze, said Beijing's city publicity department. (Straits Times 20 Jun 2002) (5)

  A fire in a cybercafe in Beijing's university yesterday killed 24 people, mostly teenage students, triggering an immediate ban on the city's 2,400 Internet bars. The blaze erupted at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe on the second floor of a two-storey building in the capital's Haidian district, witnesses said. (Straits Times 17 Jun 2002) (5)

  Two North Koreans have sought refuge in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing and are asking for passage overseas, the latest in a spate of asylum seekers fleeing their hardline communist country. An estimated 230,000 North Koreans, or more than 1 per cent of the population, are hiding in China. Many want safe passage to other countries. (Straits Times 13 May 2002) (3)

  Angry soccer fans in the northern Chinese city of Xian set fire to stadium seats on Sunday after a decision by the referee cost their team a win. A police official said later that "no more than 20 people" had been arrested. (Straits Times 26 Mar 2002) (3) 

  The largest sandstorm in a decade to sweep over north China occurred yesterday, affecting nearly 130 million Chinese people and causing numerous flight delays. The latest shachenbao or "sand-dust tempest" blanketed a vast chunk of land that spans 1.4 million sq km covering eight provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, Chinese state media reported. The affected areas were Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin. (Straits Times 22 Mar 2002) (A1) 

  Labour protests, previously unheard of under the strict communist regime, have now become almost daily occurrences in China, where millions of workers have lost jobs at debt-ridden and inefficient state companies. This month alone, several large-scale demonstrations were staged by disgruntled workers in the north-eastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Liaoning. (Straits Times 20 Mar 2002) (A1)  

  The Bank of China has admitted that five officials embezzled almost US$500 million (S$915 million) at a branch in Guangdong, confirming for the first time the long-held and widespread suspicion that the Kaiping branch was marred by graft. Bank of China president LIU Mingkang admitted on Friday that the theft of US$483 million did take place from 1993 to 2000. (Straits Times 17 Mar 2002) (16)

  Ninety-five per cent of all business software in the Chinese market is pirated, the highest rate in the world, a visiting senior United States trade official said here. Asst. Trade Representative Joseph Papovich is in China to discuss the measures Beijing is adopting to protect intellectual property rights as part of its commitment as a new member of the World Trade Organisation. (Straits Times 25 Jan 2002)(6)

  China yesterday began destroying the first of 22 cities and counties which will be submerged by rising waters from the world's largest hydro-electric power project - the controversial Three Gorges Dam. Some 1.3 million people are to be relocated to make way for the project. Much of the dam has been built and it is expected to begin holding back water on China's longest river, the Yangtze, in June next year. (Straits Times 21 Jan 2002)(A2)

  Tonnes of deadly cyanide leaked into a tributary of the Luohe River in central China after the truck transporting the cargo careered into it, state media and local officials said yesterday. The truck carrying 11 tonnes of liquid sodium cyanide went off the rutted road along the tributary last Thursday, said a county official in Luoning, Henan province, about 800 km south-west of Beijing. (Straits Times 6 Nov 2001)(3) 

  The number of homosexuals in china has reached alarming proportions, underlining the urgency for the fight against Aids to be taken to the long-ignored gay community, a senior Chinese health official has said. Such public comment on homosexuality is rare in the country. Vice-Health Minister YIN Dakui, speaking at an Aids conference last week, said there was no accurate data on China's homosexuals, but he felt the number was big enough to cause consternation. Although homosexuality is not illegal in China, the authorities have tended to sweep the taboo topic under the carpet. (Straits Times 28 Oct 2001)(13)

   A physician has been arrested on suspicion of blowing up a city bus in the hope of killing his pregnant wife. Three people were killed and the man's wife injured severely in the bombing on Sunday in Linyi, a city in the eastern province of Shandong, a Public Security Bureau spokesman said. (Straits Times 25 Oct 2001)(5)

  American media giant AOL Time Warner has made a breakthrough in the tightly-controlled Chinese media market, becoming the first foreign television company to win rights to broadcast to viewers directly in mainland China. Its 24-hour Mandarin-language channel, China Entertainment Television, will start broadcasts next January, though only on several cable networks in the southern province of Guangdong. (Straits Times 24 Oct 2001)(4) 

   Chinese Premier ZHU Rongji has confirmed that he will retire from office in 2003 because he was too old. Mr ZHU, who turns 73 next month, said on Wednesday that he would definitely not seek a second term as Premier because of his age, in his most explicit statement to date about his political career. The Chinese leader, ranked third in the Communist Party hierarchy, became Premier in 1998. His five-year term expires in 2003. (Straits Times 7 Sep 2001)(3)

  China yesterday meted out stiff jail terms, including life imprisonment, to four Falungong members for organising a horrifying self-immolation attempt in Tiananmen Square in January, in the latest blow in a bitter two-year onslaught against the banned movement. One of them, LIU Yunfang, 57, was sentenced to life imprisonment, while the others were sentenced to seven to 15 years in prison. (Straits Times 18 Aug 2001)(4)

   The Chinese government has opened special bank accounts which would allow officials who have accepted bribes to give up their ill-gotten gains anonymously, before the law catches up with them. The so-called "581" accounts have been set up in at least eight cities across the country, starting with Ningbo in eastern China's Zhejiang province. These accounts allow officials to deposit almost anything of value - cash, shopping coupons and securities - without having to divulge personal particulars. And transaction receipts issued for deposits can be used as evidence that the depositor has returned items on his own accord. (Striats Times 30 Jul 2001)(4)

  China yesterday expelled, on grounds of medical parole, GAO Zhan, a second US-based academic accused of spying for Taiwan, amid mending ties between China and the United States. QIN Guangguang, a third US scholar also found guilty of espionage, is also set to be released on medical parole too, according to an announcement by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. (Straits Times 27 Jul 2001)(4)

  China yesterday deported Chinese-American academic LI Shaomin nearly two weeks after he was found guilty of spying for Taiwan and three days before US Secretary of State Colin Powell's scheduled visit to China. LI is a naturalised American. The China-born Princeton-trained LI boarded a United Airlines aircraft yesterday morning, bound for San Francisco. (Straits Times 26 Jul 2001)(4) 

  Two US-linked Chinese scholars were yesterday sentenced to 10 years in jail for spying on China, in a decision handed down just four days before an official visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Analysts here said the jail terms for QIN Guangguang and GAO Zhan, while unlikely to have a major impact on Sino-US ties, would increase negative perceptions of China in the United States. (Straits Times 25 Jul 2001)(4)

  Shanghai: A 600-tonne gantry crane collapsed over dozens of workers at a Shanghai shipbuilding plant yesterday, killing at least 28 people and injuring five others. More bodies might be buried beneath the crane, said a Shanghai Hudong Shipyard spokesman. The cause of the accident is under investigation (Straits Times 18 Jul 2001)(1)

  In a sign that Beijing wants better ties with Washington, China yesterday ordered Chinese-American academic LI Shaomin to be deported, rather than jailed, after convicting him of spying for Taiwan.(Straits Times 15 Jul 2001)(6)

  A neutral Washington, topmost support from the International Olympic Committee, and slick public relations clinched the 2008 Summer Olympic Games Site for Beijing. Washington's pledge not to block Beijing's bid cleared the way for International Olympic Committee (IOC) members allied to the United States to vote for Beijing. (Straits Times 15 Jul 2001) (6)

Beijing: Fourteen imprisoned followers of the banned Falungong sect killed themselves in a north-eastern labour camp, in the largest reported single incident of mass suicide since the controversial group was outlawed two years ago by the Chinese authorities. 25 followers took part in the suicide bid on 20 Jun 2001 in Heilongjiang, of whom 11 were saved by camp guards, according to reports here yesterday which cited a provicial judicial official. The Falungong, founded in 1992 by the New York-exiled LI Hongzhi, preaches a mix of Buddhism and Taoism coupled with breathing exercises. (4) Straits Times 5 Jul 2001)

  An attention-grabbing draft family-planning law, which allows for a departure from a strict one-child policy enforced in the cities, moved one step closer to enactment when it was tabled for a second reading in the national parliament earlier this week. The proposed law ratifies what is already happening in several Chinese cities, such as Shanghai. Over the past two years, many cities have passed local laws allowing couples from one-child families to have two offspring. (Straits Times 29 Jun 2001)

  Shanghai: The Shanghai Five security mechanism was yesterday expanded to six members, with Uzbekistan joining China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan in the newly-named Shanghai Cooperative Organisation (SCO). Now, for the first time since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, a strong regional organisation has emerged in Central Asia to fill the power vacuum. (Straits Times 15 Jun 2001)

 Signalling an end to a tense chapter in Sino-US ties, China said on 24 May 2001 it had agreed to a US proposal to dismantle the damaged spy plane, stranded on Hainan Island since 1 Apr 2001, and return it to the United States. (Straits Times 25 May 2001)

 Unfaithful husbands who have a kept woman can be charged under the revisions to the Marriage Law passed over the weekend as it is now stated explicitly that mistress-keeping is to be prohibited. The new law unequivocally prohibits cohabitation with another woman other than one's spouse, an act which can be established as bigamous with enough proof. (Straits Times 30 Apr 2001)

  China announced on 11 Apr 2001 it would release the 24 crew of an American spy-plane crew held for 11 days in Hainan after receiving a much-worked-over letter from the United States expressing sorrow at the loss of a Chinese pilot. (Straits Times 12 Apr 2001)