Beijing

A small South African-owned plane crashed on Friday in poor weather in central China, with the pilot, the only person on board, presumed dead, aviation officials said. ”It was a small plane carrying just one pilot. It belonged to South Africa. There were two planes that were in China for an air show,” said Huang Suihua, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

North Korea’s secretive government on Friday called on the Red Cross to help treat the injured at a train explosion, but it has provided no information on the scale of the disaster or the death toll, a spokesperson for the international agency said. South Korean media reported that as many as 3 000 people might have been killed or injured.

It was the smallest of collisions, but the minor traffic accident between a top-of-the-range BMW and a rickety farmer’s tractor has prompted the Chinese authorities to take drastic action to prevent a head-on collision between the top and bottom classes of its increasingly divided society. ”The BMW incident” has highlighted China’s class divide.

China has published shocking statistics on the trafficking of women and children within its borders, with police freeing 42 215 victims during the two years from 2001, state press reported on Tuesday. Over the same period, more than 22 000 suspects were arrested as police cracked 20 360 cases involving kidnapped women and children.

Shanghai’s population has soared beyond the 20-million mark in the past year as more than three million new job seekers have flocked to the city in the vanguard of China’s spectacular economic surge.

Most of the world’s electronic trash — especially old computers — is dumped in China, causing severe environmental problems and illnesses among residents, a state media report said on Monday.

A prominent Internet activist was set to go on trial in China on Tuesday, as the government appeared undeterred by recent difficulties it had encountered in battling cyber-dissent through the courts.

Policewomen in central China’s Henan province are tossing aside their uniforms and donning high heels, miniskirts and low-cut blouses in hopes of luring and nabbing rapists. They are part of a special squad aimed at curbing an increase in sex-related crimes.

Cresting river waters menaced a swath of northern China on Monday, threatening to send more people fleeing from the worst flooding in 20 years, which authorities say has already forced a half-million evacuations.

The United States was accused of seeking to ”smash the rice bowls of the workers”’ as Treasury Secretary John Snow flew into China this week with the issue of cheap exports top of his agenda.

Thirty-two people have been confirmed dead and more than 1 000 injured, and regional governments dispatched teams on Thursday to assess more than -million in damage after Typhoon Dujuan lashed coastal southern China.

A solution to the Korean nuclear crisis seems remote after talks ended in Beijing on Friday with the United States and North Korea showing no inclination to compromise. Although the six-party talks ran their course with no dramatic walk-outs, the absence of any high-profile signals of commitment to future talks was more significant.

The death toll from an earthquake that shook a swath of northern China over the weekend has risen to three and the number of injured has climbed to 1 100, the government said on Monday as authorities worked to shelter people displaced by the tremor.

More than 3,5-million people have been left homeless by floods ravaging China, the International Federation of Red Cross said on Tuesday as it launched an emergency appeal for help.

China was urged on Friday to be more transparent and to release figures detailing the number of people infected by Aids after selling their blood through government approved or managed collection centres.