Cross-region drug dealers caught

Three drug traffickers who dealt in heroin across several provinces were detained by police on Wednesday in Hanyang, a city in Central China's Hubei Province, reports Chutian Jinbao newspaper.

Zhang, 50, and two accomplices were discovered trading the drug near a Hanyang park in late November but fled before they could be caught.

The wily traders fled to Southwest China's Yunnan Province and moved through several other provinces to avoid the police.

Acting on a tip-off, Hanyang police finally caught them on Monday morning and a total of 2,140 grams of heroin was found in their house.

Cobbler finds it difficult to sew up his marriage

First love is supposed to be sweet. But for a 51-year-old cobbler in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei Province, it turned bitter.

Zhong Xiaoxian found out last week that his lover was a cheat: She swindled him out of more than 6,000 yuan (US$723) by offering marriage as a lure, Chutian Jinbao reports.

Cupid had never struck and Zhong did not entertain thoughts of marriage till he began dating a woman in her 40s. But the woman disappeared with the money she took to buy household appliances for their marital home.

(China Daily 01/16/2004 page4)