SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- A series of explosions ripped through fireworks workshops in southern China, killing 13 people, a local official and the government's Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

An initial blast occurred late afternoon Thursday, spreading to six other workshops at the Jiangnan Fireworks Plant in Hunan province' Anhua county, Xinhua said.

Workshops were reduced to rubble and an area of around 500 square meters (5,400 square feet) was obliterated, the report said.

A spokesman for the Anhua county industrial safety commission said one person remained in critical condition.

The accident's cause was under investigation and no other details were being released, said the man, who like many Chinese bureaucrats refused to be identified by name.

Xinhua said the county originally had 17 fireworks factories, but eight had already been closed due to safety concerns.

Fireworks production is a major source of revenue in many poor parts of China, but lax safety standards routinely lead to accidents.

The accident came just days after the circulation of a notice from the central government urging strengthened management over fireworks production, storage, transport, sales and use.

Among the demands of the September 14 document was for standardized design of factories and warehouses to feature firefighting equipment and tougher crackdowns on illegal fireworks production and storage.

Fireworks have been used for centuries in China to mark auspicious occasions such as weddings and business openings.

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A university in eastern China has stirred up a storm of controversy about feng shui, with academics around the country sounding off on whether the ancient Chinese study of geomancy is a science or mere superstition.

Feng shui, or "wind and water", is the process of maximizing the flow of energy to achieve harmony between people, structures and nature, for instance in making a decision about the siting of a building or placing of furniture in a room.

It is taken very seriously in Hong Kong, Taiwan and among overseas Chinese, but was branded a superstition on the mainland when the Communists swept to power in 1949.

In recent years it has staged a comeback in China, but a new feng shui course offered by an institute affiliated to Nanjing University has prompted calls from some academics to have it shut down, Xinhua reported on its English Web site, http://www.chinaview.cn.

"Feng shui is no science. It only fills the wallets of some charlatans," Chen Zhihua, an architect and professor at prestigious Tsinghua University, was quoted as saying.

An unnamed feng shui practitioner was quoted by Xinhua as saying at least 70 percent of the real estate projects in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, had been evaluated by masters before construction began.

"More and more individuals and organizations are approaching feng shui experts for various advice, from how to decorate their homes to where to rent office space," Xinhua said.

Before construction began on the new Disneyland in Hong Kong, which opened this week, designers consulted feng shui masters to make sure "qi", or energy, would flow smoothly through the park.

Sources connected to the Nanjing feng shui course said the classes would continue, despite the ill wind

China is asking where all the girls have gone.

And the sobering answer is that this vast nation, now the world's fastest-growing economy, is confronting a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as "gendercide" -- the phenomenom caused by millions of families resorting to abortion and infanticide to make sure their one child was a boy.

The age-old bias for boys, combined with China's draconian one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced what Gu Baochang, a leading Chinese expert on family planning, described as "the largest, the highest, and the longest" gender imbalance in the world.

Ancient practice
For centuries, Chinese families without sons feared poverty and neglect. The male offspring represented continuity of lineage and protection in old age.

The traditional thinking is best described in the ancient "Book of Songs" (1000-700 B.C.):

"When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play...
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play..."

After the Communists took power in 1949, Mao Zedong rejected traditional Malthusian arguments that population growth would eventually outrun food supply, and firmly regarded China's huge population as an asset, then with an annual birth rate of 3.7 percent. Without a state-mandated birth control program, China's sex ratio in the 60's and 70's remained normal.

Then in the early '80s, China began enforcing an ambitious demographic engineering policy to limit families to one-child, as part of its strategy to fast-track economic modernization. The policy resulted in a slashed annual birth rate of 1.29 percent by 2002, or the prevention of some 300 million births, and the current population of close to 1.3 billion.

‘Missing girls’
From a relatively normal ratio of 108.5 boys to 100 girls in the early 80s, the male surplus progressively rose to 111 in 1990, 116 in 2000, and is now is close to 120 boys for each 100 girls at the present time, according to a Chinese think-tank report.

The shortage of women is creating a "huge societal issue,” warned U.N. resident coordinator Khalid Malik earlier this year.

Along with HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation, he said it was one of the three biggest challenges facing China.

"In eight to 10 years, we will have something like 40 to 60 million missing women," he said, adding that it will have "enormous implications" for China's prostitution industry and human trafficking.

China's own population experts have been warning for years about the looming gender crisis.

"The loss of female births due to illegal prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortions and female infanticide will affect the true sex ratio at birth and at young ages, creating an unbalanced population sex structure in the future and resulting in potentially serious social problems," argued Peking University's chief demographer back in 1993.

Prenatal sex selection
The abortion of female fetuses and infanticide was aided by the spread of cheap and portable ultra-sound scanners in the 1980's. Illegal mobile scanning and backstreet hospitals can provide a sex scan for as little as $50, according to one report.

"Prenatal sex selection was probably the primary cause, if not the sole cause, for the continuous rise of the sex ratio at birth," said population expert Prof. Chu Junhong.

A slew of reports have confirmed the disturbing demographic trend.

- In a 2002 survey conducted in a central China village, more than 300 of the 820 women had abortions and more than a third of them admitted they were trying to select their baby's sex.
- According to a report by the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the vast majority of aborted fetuses, more than 70 percent, were female, citing the abortion of up to 750,000 female fetuses in China in 1999.
- A report by Zhang Qing, population researcher of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the gender imbalance is "statistically related to the high death rate of female babies, with female death rate at age zero in the city or rural areas consistently higher than male baby death rate." Only seven of China's 29 provinces are within the world's average sex ratio. Zhang Qing's report cited eight "disaster provinces" from North to South China, where there were 26 to 38 percent more boys than girls.
- In the last census in 2000, there were nearly 19 million boys more than girls in the 0-15 age group. "We have to act now or the problem will become very serious," said Peking University sociologist Prof. Xia Xueluan. He cited the need to strengthen social welfare system in the countryside to weaken the traditional preference for boys.

Gravity of imbalance beginning to be felt
The hint of "serious" problems ahead can be seen in the increasing cases of human trafficking as bachelors try to "purchase" their wives.

China's police have freed more than 42,000 kidnapped women and children from 2001 to 2003.

The vast army of surplus males could pose a threat to China's stability, argued two Western scholars. Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. Den Boer, who recently wrote a book on the "Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population," cited two rebellions in disproportionately male areas in Manchu Dynasty China.

According to their analysis, low-status young adult men with little chance of forming families of their own are "much more prone to attempt to improve their situation through violent and criminal behavior in a strategy of coalitional aggression."

The growing crime rate in China which is being linked to China's massive "floating" or transient population, some 80 million of which are low-status males, seems to add weight to their observation.

Girl Care Project
The imbalance has spurred some official efforts to shift public opinion.

The "Girl Care Project" is described as a multi-pronged approach to encourage the birth of girls, although some experts complain that it's being framed in terms of the future needs of men.

"That's too male-oriented and discriminatory of women," said Dr. Gu, the population control expert.

According to one estimate, over the next decade, some 40 million Chinese men will be unable to find wives due to the "scarcity" of females, thus the growing number of so-called "bachelors' villages" in various parts of China.

"This project ought to be seen as a way to foster more respect and concern for women and girls," Gu said.

The program aims to end pre-birth sex selection, as well as "attacking the criminal activities of drowning and abandoning baby girls [while] rewarding and assisting families that plan to give birth to baby girls," reported The People's Daily, China's leading paper and the flagship of the Communist Party.

Benefits for girls
The pilot program is being launched in more than a dozen of China's poorest provinces, with funding split between the national and local government.

Leading the way is Fujian province where some $24 million has been allocated for distribution among nearly half a million households, with some 100,000 girls to be exempt from school fees.

Under the program, couples who limit themselves to two girls would receive a combined annual pension of about $150 for the rest of their lives. Preferential treatment in health care, housing and employment would also be provided.

A recent glowing report in the The People's Daily cited a village where new houses for beneficiaries worth more than $2,300 each were built along a "Family Planning Basic Policy Street.”

China's birth control policy is now "a diversified mechanism," according to Population Vice-Minister Zhao Baige, which allows for one-child in the cities, two in the rural areas, and three in ethnic regions, with no limit in Tibet. "To normalize the sex ratio, illegal sex determination and sex-selective abortions must be strictly banned," Zhao declared recently.

An American demographer, who has been closely following China's population program and who spoke on condition of anonymity, lauded China's "coming to grips" with the problem.

"Still, they are in a deep dilemma -- emotional and policy dilemma -- because the solution to the problem will conflict with other parts of their population strategy to reduce birth rate or some of the measures could perhaps make the problem even worse," warned the demographer.

"We still have a lot of work to do," said Dr.Gu. "There's no road map yet on how to achieve the goal of normal sex ratio."

JINSHANLING, China (AP) - The Mongol attackers are long gone, but the vast brick-and-stone barrier that helped China repel them and other invaders still stands and awaits a new horde of travelers who can explore and even camp out on the centuries-old fortification.

Crumbling in some areas and neatly restored in others, the Great Wall -- actually a patchwork of walls -- snakes over hills and through craggy ravines covering thousands of miles of Chinese countryside, dotted by watchtowers once manned by Ming dynasty sentinels.

Some of the towers, where enterprising Chinese today guard only souvenir stands, have sprung back to life as something akin to modern-day hostels, sheltering hikers who come for overnight trips to soak up history and vistas of former battlefields now carpeted with vegetation.

Sun Hailong, a Chinese guide of Mongol ancestry, rents one of the towers about 87 miles northeast of the Chinese capital, Beijing, and takes visitors who want to spend the night -- by pitching a tent or simply unfurling a sleeping bag -- in its crenelated confines.

Visiting mainland China for the first time with my father, who had flown in from the United States, I arranged through a Beijing-based friend to meet Sun near Jinshanling, the section of the wall where he lives with his family.

We arrived late one afternoon after riding for three hours in a minibus crowded with cigarette-puffing locals. Along the way, we passed scenes of rural life -- ruddy-faced farmers sitting on their haunches outside brick houses, firewood stacked high, herds of sheep.

The van left us on a desolate stretch of highway, at the mouth of a road spanned by an immense stone gateway that marked the entrance to Jinshanling. Sun greeted us there, grinning and urging my father and I to climb into the back of his three-wheeled motorcycle.

"Today, the sunset will be beautiful," said Sun, a mustachioed 37-year-old who wore a T-shirt, dark blue trousers and traditional black cotton shoes.

After riding uphill for several miles, we arrived at Sun's house and souvenir shop, dropped off our bags and continued on foot to the wall, which stood like a medieval fortress in the distance.

We clambered up stone stairs, traversed a sagebrush-covered hillside and entered a keyhole-like door in the base of the Jinshanling wall, which is partially restored but less touristed than areas such as Badaling, which former U.S. President Richard Nixon visited in 1972.

Inside the rampart, we could see the wall's hodgepodge construction over many centuries: older brown bricks were nested in gritty mortar alongside clean dark gray ones used by restorers in recent decades.

Ming dynasty rulers began construction of the Jinshanling wall -- roughly as it exists today, with strategic holes and chutes for weaponry and watchtowers -- in response to raids by bow-and-arrow-wielding Mongols in the 1500s.

Their soldiers and artisans used bricks as a facing for a stone-and-mortar wall erected after a 1550 attack by Mongol horsemen, according to David Spindler, an independent scholar who has been researching the wall around Beijing for several years. It was bolstered by brick ramparts.

But the wall's history likely stretches back further.

"Another section of wall in the Jinshanling area, parallel to the current wall, may have been built by the Northern Qi dynasty," which ruled from 550 to 577 A.D., Spindler added.

The Jinshanling wall, now almost silent except for the squawks of pheasants, was once the scene of a historic battle between Chinese forces and Mongol fighters in October 1554.

But the Chinese overwhelmed the Mongols in just three days.

"The Mongols and their horses ran out of food and had to call off their attack," said Spindler, who added that Jinshanling was vulnerable to enemy raids because it was a low-lying area.

The ascent to Jinshanling took us less than an hour, though the climb was at times steep and the footing shaky. From one point, we watched the sun set behind mountaintops before hiking back to Sun's house for a meal of dumplings, stir-fried vegetables and glasses of beer.

Then we pulled on fleece jackets as the night got colder and, with flashlights beaming, headed into darkness to return to the wall for the night.

Adventurous travelers can explore and even camp out in watchtowers along the Great Wall of China.

Under a nearly full moon, we traipsed along some of the wall's narrow walkways, through shadowy passageways and over several steep humps along the wall's spine. It was eerily still, except for the flashes of a photographer's camera in the distance.

We arrived at Sun's watchtower, where we decided to sleep under the stars, outside the tower's box-like stone house.

Sun laid out a tarpaulin and sleeping bags for us while we brushed our teeth by leaning over the crenels where Chinese sentries might have hurled stones at marauders below.

We slept -- somewhat uncomfortably in the chill air -- until the sun rose early the next morning over the saw-tooth horizon. Sun made us a simple breakfast of instant noodles, which we slurped down eagerly.

We spent half the next day hiking 6.2 miles of the Great Wall -- over loose stones and along paths that skirted weak or collapsed sections -- to Simatai, another stretch with steeper inclines -- and more tourists.

Although annoyingly persistent hawkers followed us at times, trying to peddle bottled water and postcards, we were virtually alone on the Jinshanling wall. Like a narrow and dilapidated cobbled street, it led us through tumbledown watchtowers and over small mountain peaks.

But the enchanting solitude of Jinshanling ended abruptly at Simatai, where crowds of tourists were disembarking from tour buses and swarming around amusements such as a trolley across a river gulch, restaurants and a cable car that carries passengers up a mountainside.

With the widely touted 2008 Beijing Olympics on the horizon and bigger crowds expected, the seclusion we experienced at the Jinshanling wall -- with its sweeping views, abandoned battlements and pristine countryside -- may become harder to find.

Better to visit before the next invasion.

BEIJING - China Telecom, the nation's largest fixed-line operator, is looking at ways to block phone calls made over the Internet such as the popular service offered by Skype, according to media reports.

Skype Technologies SA's free software lets people talk for free over the Internet using computers and microphones. It can also be used to call land lines for a fee.

Such services threaten the business of fixed-line phone operators.

China Telecom wants to prevent users in China from logging on to Skype's server, the newspaper Beijing Business Today reported on its Web site.

It is also trying to monitor and control online data volume, so if someone is making a phone call over a China Telecom broadband connection it will be disconnected, the report said.

China Telecom expects these controls will be ready in 2006 or 2007, it added.

An operator at Shenzhen Telecom — a branch of China Telecom in the southern city of Shenzhen — said Saturday that downloading software for voice over Internet calls is not allowed by Shenzhen Telecom. She refused to give her name.

Operators at Beijing Telecom and Shanghai Telecom — other China Telecom branches — said they had heard of no such restrictions.

HONG KONG, China -- Disneyland flung open its gates in Hong Kong on Monday in its first foray into the massive China market.

With traditional Chinese performances such as Chinese lion dances and singing children as a backdrop, Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong, Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang and top Disney executives Michael Eisner and Robert Iger officiated at the park's opening on Monday.

As many as 16,000 people were set to flock to Penny Bay on Lantau Island, a half-hour train ride from this congested city's central business area.

Organizers say the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland is likely to be the biggest media event since the former British colony was handed over to China in 1997.

In a show of support for the special administrative territory perched on its southern coast, China's Vice President Zeng Qinghong will attend the opening at the 129-hectare (318-acre) park, flanked by Hong Kong's leader and Disney's top executives.

The opening comes six years after Hong Kong's government and the California-based Disney agreed to jointly develop the $3.5 billion project.

Hong Kong was in the doldrums at the time, and desperately wanted to add some glamour and diversity to its economy, known primarily as a banking, investment, shopping and shipping center.

The Hong Kong region in recent years also has battled setbacks from the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s and the deadly SARS epidemic of 2003.

For Disney, Hong Kong was a launch pad into the world's most populous nation and fastest-growing market, and a huge play on China's burgeoning middle class.

In a show of support for the beleaguered Hong Kong, China allowed its nationals to travel to the city of 6.8 million people in 2003.

Since then, floods of mainland Chinese have flocked to Hong Kong picking up brand-name goods, crowding to its jewelry stores and eating out at its myriad restaurants.

The world's best-known entertainment company is counting on these increasingly affluent mainland tourists in its third international venture, and it's second in Asia after Japan. Disney and Hong Kong officials estimate one-third of the visitors at Hong Kong Disneyland will be from mainland China, one-third from Hong Kong and the rest from Southeast Asia.

As many as 150 million people live within a 300-mile (482-kilometer) radius of Disneyland, and Disney is counting on this population to visit and stay at the park.

In a telephone survey of 1,500 mainland Chinese who lived in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, market research firm AC Neilsen said one-third would either consider going or would go to Disneyland.

Disney says it has learned from its park in France. It decided to start off small in Hong Kong, so that it could become profitable with 5.6 million visitors a year, and build the second phase later on.

The U.S.-based company also learned that it needed to fit into the local culture after it realized it made a major faux pas in Paris by not serving wine.

In Hong Kong, feng shui has played a large part in the park's design. It moved its main gate so it was facing the right direction, put a bend in its walkway so that "chi" or energy does not flow into the South China Sea and does not have the unlucky number four in its elevators. (Full story) A feature of the Hong Kong park are the Chinese garden pavilions, where trigger-happy picture snappers can pose with Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. The 21 rides at the Hong Kong park are tame, after market research showed Asians weren't after the more scary versions.

In weeks of rehearsals leading up the grand opening, where as many as 100,000 people turned up, Disney discovered that Asians like to have long, expensive dinners and had to upscale on mobile food trolleys and seats.

The park -- which looks much like the first Disneyland in California, with a Sleeping Beauty Castle, Space Mountain thrill ride and a Cinderella Carousel -- has been beset by obstacles.

Earlier in the year, beetles began eating up the beds, while in August packs of wild dogs wondered in down the hill and invaded the park.

And the reviews have not all been rosy. Early visitors said the lines were too long and the size at 126 hectares (311 acres) was too small (Tokyo has 180 hectares, Paris 1,943 and Florida 11,300 hectares).

Disney also had to ditch shark fin's soup after local uproar over its use.

Still, the majority of people in Hong Kong support the park, according to local surveys and China's government is also very much behind the project.

Disney officials believe once the park is built out to 180 hectares, it will attract 10 million visitors annually.

Hong Kong leaders hope that the region will diversify into a family destination, China's state-run news agency said in September report.

Disney has said that it will focus on Hong Kong for the next decade, with the second phase of the park under discussion.