The BBC and the Antipodean press are reporting on the sentencing of a child trafficking ring in Fujian Province.

There seems to be nothing on this in the American papers, which I personally find a little disturbing. But not as disturbing as the stories themselves:

BBC: Five people in eastern China have been sentenced to between seven years and life in jail for kidnapping and selling children, state media has reported.

The gang kidnapped four children in the city of Longyang in Fujian province and sold them in a nearby city in 2005 and 2006, Xinhua news agency said.

The kidnappers met over the internet, the report added.

stuff.co.nz: The gang kidnapped four children in towns near Longyan city and sent them to the nearby city of Nan'an to sell them, the report said, without disclosing what happened to the children or what gender they were....

Two of the other kidnappers were also convicted of illegal logging, Xinhua said, without elaborating.

Well, isn't *that* industrious...

In 2005, a Chinese court sentenced a gang member to death for its role in running a child-trafficking ring in the prosperous southern province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.

The gang had kidnapped 38 children, mostly from crowded markets, and sold them between 2001 and 2004, according to state media.

Deep, cleansing breaths. Deep, cleansing breaths. Let the red mist subside....

China, meanwhile, is pointing a finger squarely back at the US for human rights abuses. I haven't read this report closely, but it starts out like this (bold in the original):

On March 6, the U.S. Department of State released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2006. As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights conditions in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but avoided touching on the human rights situation in the United States. To help the world people have a better understanding of the situation in the United States and promote the international cause of human rights, we hereby publish the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2006.

Words like "whopping" and "stunning" pepper the subsequent reporting of statistics, so you can kind of tell what's going on.