The Long March: One day's reading

Sunset in Pudong, Shanghai. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Emilly reads Chinese newspapers and the English-language Shanghai Daily, all owned, controlled and censored to varying degrees by the state. One day's reading of the Shanghai Daily cast this light on life in China.

* Two men, Pan Mingquan, 38, and Wu Daping, 50, both of Guizhou Province, have been sentenced to death for stealing and trafficking 12 boys. The boys, aged 2 and 3, were lured from village streets and sold for the equivalent of $3000 to $4000 each. Six other people related to Wu were sentenced to jail terms ranging from four years to life.

* Lu Kehuan, president of Guangxi Animal Breeding Research Institute, says that he plans to develop technology to select the gender of a child before conception. He says this would be done by sorting sperm cells, but would be used only for treating genetic diseases. The process proved successful when breeding buffalo. China is revising its penal law to make gender-selective abortions a criminal offence. Health workers who reveal the gender of unborn babies would also face jail.

* An elder statesman of sports says the nation needs to do more than train athletes for the Beijing Olympics - it must ensure its citizens have good manners as hosts. He Zhenliang, honorary president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, says: "It's the rude bus passenger, or a witness to an accident who fails to lend a hand, that stands in our way of staging an impressive Olympiad."

* The Shanghai Wedding Trade Association has doubled the number of wedding hosts it is training. A shortage is expected because this lunar year is believed to be a particularly popular time to tie the knot. Chinese consider it a lucky year because it has 385 days and is thus a double spring.

* A man has been charged with assaulting his roommate for misreading his fortune. The roommate, Xiong, was left blind in his left eye by the beating. Xiong had told Dai, the suspect, that he would have good luck in June 2005. Dai was happy about this and paid 200 yuan ($39). But when his luck that month was bad, he allegedly attacked his roommate.