The Food Fight

Special Report

Chinese police force second largest among UN peace missions

China is the second largest contributor of policemen to UN peacekeeping operations among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, according to a senior Chinese official.

Patrolling a lawless land

KHARTOUM: For Li Chunman, a Chinese peacekeeping policeman in South Sudan, his happiest and most relaxing moments are when he gets to talk with his 15-year-old daughter.

Messengers of peace

On the night of July 25 last year, an Israeli air strike destroyed a UN observer force base in southern Lebanon near the eastern end of the border with Israel, killing four UN observers, including one Chinese.

'Every evening I almost swam in my bed from the sweat'

Excerpts from UN peacekeeper Li Chunman's diary, which he kept while serving in East Timor and Sudan:

Our fallen heroes

Lei Runming, a UN observer stationed in Iraq and Kuwait, died in a car accident on the Iraq-Kuwait border in 1991, while on a mission there.

Miracle makers

When the first Chinese peacekeeping medical unit arrived at an airport in Kindu, of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on April 9, 2003, "I was shocked," says Liu Xin, referring to the presence of armed rebels at the same airport.

Keeping in touch while keeping peace

"Does your mother log on the Internet herself?" Yang Yang's roommates often asked him when they saw him chatting with his mother online.

Doctors give blood to revive dying mother

The telephone rang at 3:30 am. Dr Zhang Sun, who was on night duty at the fifth Chinese peacekeeping medical unit in Zwedru County, of Liberia, picked up the phone. "This is an emergency," he was told. The life of a 34-year-old pregnant Liberian woman was hanging by a thread.

Special Report

Free market gets a helping hand

Liaoning may be an economist's dream for comparative study. First, it was the success story of a planned economy; then, it was a failure of the planned economy; and now, it is poised for a new role in a market economy.