October 2007, Issue 269
The cover story Phoenix Weekly for the first half of October concerns the dangerous nuclear black market in mainland China. Of course, this is not a market on which you can purchase nuclear weapons; rather, it deals in low-purity, home-made uranium ore products.
With the increasing civil use of nuclear power, villagers who lived beside abandoned uranium mines discovered that yellow stones could be turned into money. So they blew up the seal to the mine and began private extraction, making underground deals and seeking buyers from abroad. These activities could push China, and the whole world, into disaster.
Also on the cover:
Jiang Renjie, former Deputy Major of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, broke the record for corruption in China. In 2002, he accepted a bribe worth more than 80 million yuan, the largest single bribe amount ever taken on the Chinese mainland. Like Chen Liangyu, the Shanghai party boss who was toppled for corruption, his case was postponed until after the 17th Party Congress concludes.
In September 2004, a man named Li Shengli fell off the Qiyi Road Police Station building in Zhoukou, Henan Province. He died at the scene; the station chief said that Li killed himself. On May 8, 2007, following an investigation, the court sentenced one officer to death, one to a suspended death sentence, and a third to life in prison. All three men appealed. At a second trial held on September 11, they clamored for all those who had provided evidence against them to appear in court, and would not quiet down until the judge postponed the trial.