Five Chinese Nuns Hospitalized After Land Dispute
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 2, 2005; Page A17

BEIJING, Dec. 1 -- At least five Catholic nuns resisting a government plan to sell land claimed by their church to a real estate developer are hospitalized in the Chinese city of Xian after thugs armed with sticks and clubs assaulted them, a witness and others familiar with the incident said Thursday.

One of the nuns, identified as Cheng Jing, 34, was blinded in the attack and has recovered the use of only one eye, and another nun was scheduled for surgery on her spine, according to people who have visited them. A third was recovering with a broken arm, and two others incurred serious head injuries. Story


Torture found rife in China
December 3, 2005
From combined dispatches

BEIJING -- A United Nations rights investigator said yesterday that torture was still widespread in China and accused authorities of trying to obstruct his work on a historic fact-finding mission.

"Torture is on the decline, but it is still widespread," Manfred Nowak, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur on torture, told reporters at the end of his two-week trip.

"There is much that still needs to be done; there is a need for many more structural reforms," said Mr. Nowak, a law professor in Vienna, Austria.

Torture methods he cited include the use of electric-shock batons, cigarette burns, submersion in pits of water or sewage and exposure to conditions of extreme heat or cold. The rest