'No worry' on imported meat
LOCAL people can enjoy their meat as usual following a reassurance from local authorities they have taken strict measures to bar Listeria bacilli, reportedly tainted food and killed seven people in France, from entering Shanghai.
Blue book predicts robust shipping
CHINA'S first shipping blue book issued yesterday predicts that the nation's shipping business will be better than last year's as it enters the WTO.
Infrastructure plans for 2000 released
THE city plans to invest 280 billion yuan ($33.8 billion) this year in con-struction to improve its infrastructure.
Festival travellers return
THE number of passengers travelling on trains in areas around Shanghai surged again as the Spring Festival holidays ended after the Lantern Festival last Saturday.
New taxi service: minibuses for the disabled
WITH the 5th National Games for the Disabled in mind, Shanghai Bashi Taxi Company has invested about 6 million yuan ($725,000) in purchasing 30 Pheonix model mini-buses from Zhangjiagang in East China's Jiangsu Province.
Coastal border control tightened
BORDER policemen will have stronger powers to safeguard coastal areas of the city under a new set of coastal border control regulations.
Bright lights, big city
CHEN Xianpeng, 24, didn't go home for Spring Festival this year, though this was the second consecutive year he has spent the festival away from his hometown.
Spring period wine vessel from Shenshan
DURING the Eastern Zhou (770-256 BC), Qin (221-206 BC), and Han (206 BC-AD 220) dynasties, bronze casting flourished among the minority peoples inhabiting the border areas of China.
Sexism at work
MEN only need apply.
Police raid nabs men in sex blackmail scam
By Ni Guoliang
MEN who were caught in the act of buying sex from prostitutes when police raided a hotel in Zhangjiang Procuratorate in Pudong New Area last October, were also the victims of an elaborate plot to extort money, police said. One of the seven involved, a jobless man called Cai, admitted to police that he had master-minded the whole incident. Investigators told the court Cai had convinced a friend and his colleague to accompany him to a hotel to have sex with prostitutes. Cai told police he had long held a grudge against this friend whom he said was too "stingy." Unknown to his friend, he then made arrangements for four other well-built men to surprise them in the middle of their sex session and demand 5,000 yuan ($602). The thugs threatened to turn them in to the police for their involvement with prostitutes if they did not comply with the demand for money. Cai and his four accomplices have all been prosecuted for extorting money and enlisting the services of prostitutes.
Copyright 2000 by Shanghai Star. All rights reserved.