BEIJING — China on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that it is seeking to illegally obtain U.S. space technology after a scientist in the United States was convicted of violating the U.S. arms embargo on China.

The scientist, Quan-Sheng Shu, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Shanghai, pleaded guilty Monday in a district court in Norfolk, Virginia, to selling rocket technology to China and bribing Chinese officials to secure a lucrative contract for his high-tech company.

Qin Gang, a spokesman at China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that “the allegation that China is stealing outer space technology from the U.S. is being made with ulterior motives, and is in vain.”

Qin did not elaborate.

Prosecutors said Shu, an expert in cryogenics, sold technology to China for the development of hydrogen-propelled rockets. Shu’s attorney said the case had nothing to do with espionage or treason…

BEIJING (AP) — Li Ximing, Beijing’s Communist Party boss during the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests, has died at 82, Chinese state media reported Tuesday.

Li, a longtime bureaucrat in the power and water conservancy fields, died Saturday in Beijing of an unspecified illness, the official Xinhua News Agency said. No other details were given.

Li had been a leading member of the group of conservative veteran cadres who supported the military assault on the student-led protests in the capital’s central Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed in the action, most of them ordinary citizens seeking to block the troops’ advance.

The defiance and resulting bloodshed marked the last serious challenge to the party’s authority. …

A decree makes new freedoms permanent, but some limits remain:

BEIJING - China took a further step toward opening itself to the world, announcing Friday that an easing of restrictions on foreign journalists enacted for the Olympics would become permanent.

Premier Wen Jiabao signed the new decree, which took immediate effect, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at a late-night news conference.

Under the new regulations, which had been anticipated by journalists, foreign reporters would not be required to get government permission to travel within the country or to interview Chinese citizens.

“This is not only a big step forward for China in opening up to the outside world, it is also a big step for further facilitating reporting activities by foreign journalists,” Liu said…

When their pay dried up, 300 hundred Chinese workers took their Israeli bosses hostage, according to some:

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos — The global financial meltdown turned an idyllic Atlantic island into the site of an ugly dispute Thursday when hundreds of Chinese laborers on a stalled resort project allegedly detained Israeli contractors.

The standoff at a Ritz-Carlton luxury resort in the Turks and Caicos — financed by the bankrupt Lehman Brothers — vividly illustrates the scope of a financial crisis that spans the globe and a broad financial spectrum.

The dispute centers around the unfinished Ritz-Carlton Molasses Reef project on West Caicos, a 9-square-mile island belonging to the British overseas territory. The developer, Logwood Hotel Development Co., said on Oct. 1 that it was forced to halt work because of the Lehman bankruptcy.

Turks and Caicos Premier Michael Misick told The Associated Press that Chinese workers brought to build the project have not been paid for several weeks and are demanding back wages from the contractor, a subsidiary of Israel-based Ashtrom Group Ltd…

Wuhan zookeepers give chicken soup to stressed out pandas:

“BEIJING (AP) — Everyone needs some chicken soup for the soul — even pandas.

The Wuhan Zoo in central China has been feeding its two pandas home-cooked chicken soup twice in a month to reduce stress and give them a nutritional boost, a zoo official said Friday.

He Zhihua said 3-year-old Xiwang and Weiwei — literally meaning “Hope” and “Greatness” — were tired and suffering from a little shock since the start Monday of the weeklong National Day holiday, one of the biggest travel seasons of the year.

On Wednesday, up to 30,000 people swarmed the zoo and about 1,000 tourists packed the panda enclosure, shouting to get the animals’ attention, He said. The pandas paced restlessly…”

The first lawsuit again Sanlu:

“BEIJING - The parents of a baby allegedly sickened by tainted infant formula are suing the dairy at the heart of China’s contaminated milk scandal, state media reported, as 15 more companies were accused Wednesday of producing spiked products.

From the time of birth, the 1-year-old in central China’s Henan province was fed infant formula made by Sanlu Group Co., according to a report by Caijing, a leading Chinese business magazine.

The report says the case is believed to be the first civil lawsuit filed in response to the melamine contamination of liquid milk, yogurt and other products made with milk. Four infants have died and some 54,000 have become ill after drinking the contaminated formula, which has been linked to kidney stones…”

“HONG KONG - A Cadbury spokesman says preliminary results show its Chinese-made chocolates contain the industrial chemical melamine.

The spokesman said Monday it was too early to say how much melamine the chocolates contained…”

A 5.7 magnitude quake in Sichuan left thousands more homeless:

“BEIJING - Rescuers appealed for temporary housing and tents Monday after a weekend earthquake in southwest China killed at least 36 people, injured hundreds and left tens of thousands of homes in ruins.

The temblor Saturday in Sichuan province, which the U.S. Geological Survey measured at magnitude 5.7, struck along the same fault line as a May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000.

‘We need temporary houses … we need more than 10,000 tents,’ said Zhang Hai, head of the foreign liaison office of the Communist Party propaganda department in Panzhihua city. ‘This is a mountainous place and so we can’t build temporary houses everywhere.’”

The rebuilding effort will take $147 billion and at least three years:

“BEIJING - China’s government estimates it will cost $147 billion to rebuild from the massive earthquake that struck the central part of the country in May, according to state media.

The National Development and Reform Commission’s draft rebuilding plan published this week includes new homes for more than 3 million rural households, as well as the creation of jobs for about 1 million people, the China Daily newspaper reported Wednesday.”

Zhang Yimou, performers, and coaches explain some of the hardships endured to put on the opening ceremony:

“The students were kept on their feet for most of the 51-hour rehearsal with little food and rest and no shelter from the night’s downpour, as the show’s directors attempted to coordinate the 2,008-member performance with multimedia effects, students and their head coach told the AP.

‘We had only two meals for the entire time. There was almost no time to sleep, even less time for toilet breaks’” Cheng said. ‘But we didn’t feel so angry because the director was also there with us the whole time.’

Despite the sacrifices, the student performers were grateful for the opportunity to participate in the historic event and view it as an honor.”