Christmas Shopping Online - Take a Little Care While

Take a Little Care While -
Christmas Shopping Online -

 

Legitimate businesses use encryption that protects your credit card data as it travels from your computer to the merchant. This means the Web address for sending in the order will begin with https instead of the familiar http. The change from http to https may not happen until you move to the page that actually processes your order.


I once gave a vacuum cleaner as an anniversary gift.

Despite my good intentions that proved to be an ugly mistake.

My judgment isn't the only shaky thing. My gift-wrapping skills are so bad that, when I'm done with the paper and ribbons, the finished product often looks as if it has been attacked by a large dog.

So today we'll talk about a shopping topic where I can truly help -- showing you how to dodge some of the hazards of shopping online. This is the peak time of the year for online shopping and, for those of us who get a little dizzy just thinking about navigating mall crowds, online shopping can be an attractive notion.

There are ways to do it that reduce the chance of broken hearts and busted bank accounts.

Do not be creative: This is not the time to try out odd little Web sites -- places with names like Crazy Ivan's Incredible Bargains. While some might end up being great finds, you also take the very real risk of poor customer Relevant Products/Services service Relevant Products/Services, products that only slightly resemble what you see online and outright fraud. So, especially this time of the year, stick to brand name stores and Web sites where you've had success in the past.

Give yourself credit: Using a credit card gives you protection Relevant Products/Services under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act. Checks and some debit cards do not. By paying with your credit card you have the right to dispute mistakes by the merchant and, if the card ends up in the hands of crooks, you're only responsible for the first $50 of the charges.

Look for a bit of security Relevant Products/Services: Legitimate businesses use encryption that protects your credit card data Relevant Products/Services as it travels from your computer to the merchant. This means the Web address for sending in the order will begin with https instead of the familiar http. The change from http to https may not happen until you move to the page that actually processes your order. You also should look for a link that explains the site's privacy policies. And look for an icon of a closed padlock that should show on the bottom part of the Web browser. A closed lock means the site is using encryption.

Use a unique password: Before your order can be placed, you may be required to create a user name and a password for the site. When it comes to passwords, one size does not fit all. So don't recycle a password that you use to log on to other shopping sites or to check your bank account. It's perfectly OK to write down a password and user name and store it away.

Be patriotic: Only shop sites and businesses that are located in the U.S. If the business or Web site is located in another country, you may lose the protection of consumer protection laws in your state and the U.S. Besides, you will have little or no clout when dealing with a business located in another country.

Do the math: Shipping charges, taxes, handling fees and insurance charges can greatly increase what you are actually paying. What may seem like a bargain can turn into an over-priced purchase. On many sites you don't get all this information until you actually fill in the order blank. If that's the case, take a long pause and tote up the numbers before pressing the button that sends in your ordering information.

It's also smart to check out the site's return policy. For instance, if you need to return an item, will you be responsible for paying the cost of shipping it back? And will you face even more shipping charges when a replacement item is sent to you?

There might be a surprise in store: While online prices and products can be great, it's not a given that you'll find the best deal online. Don't assume local stores can't match or beat the price. That's why it's smart to start your shopping early. Give yourself enough time to check prices online and then compare the total cost from the online merchant to what you'd pay at a store.

There are many times when -- especially after you factor in shipping and handling costs -- the best deal may be located just down the street at a local store. Shopping locally also eliminates the fear that the item won't arrive in time for the holiday.

For more tips on safe online shopping, check out this Web site: www.bbbonline.org/OnLineShopTips/

Meanwhile, a last bit of advice. Avoid vacuum cleaners as a holiday gift. While, to my eyes, there's nothing more romantic than a fine piece of machinery, I have discovered that not everyone holds that same view.

Climate Science Not Faked, - But Not Pretty -

Climate Science Not Faked,
 But Not Pretty

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method.


E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data Relevant Products/Services -- but the messages don't support Relevant Products/Services claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.




The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications Relevant Products/Services.

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature Relevant Products/Services records or why models and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

The e-mails were stolen from the computer network Relevant Products/Services server Relevant Products/Services of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an influential source of climate science, and were posted online last month. The university shut down the server and contacted the police.

The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them -- about 1 million words in total.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests

"I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones, who didn't return AP requests for comment, told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."

Mann, a researcher at Penn State University, told The Associated Press: "I didn't delete any e-mails as Phil asked me to. I don't believe anybody else did."

The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones' co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)

"I do now wish I'd never sent them the data after their FOIA request!" Jones wrote in June 2007.

In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted -- and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists."

The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.

One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)" And a third scientist said the next time he sees a certain skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

And they compared contrarians to communist-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Somali pirates. They also called them out-and-out frauds.

Santer, who received death threats after his work on climate change in 1996, said Thursday: "I'm not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context."

When the journal, Climate Research, published a skeptical study, Penn State scientist Mann discussed retribution this way: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

The most provocative e-mails are usually about one aspect of climate science: research from a decade ago that studied how warm or cold it was centuries ago through analysis of tree rings, ice cores and glacial melt. And most of those e-mails, which stretch Relevant Products/Services from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails.

Still, such research has been a key element in measuring climate change over long periods.

As part of the AP review, summaries of the e-mails that raised issues from the potential manipulation of data to intensely personal attacks were sent to seven experts in research ethics, climate science and science policy.

"This is normal science politics, but on the extreme end, though still within bounds," said Dan Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University. "We talk about science as this pure ideal and the scientific method as if it is something out of a cookbook, but research is a social and human activity full of all the failings of society and humans, and this reality gets totally magnified by the high political stakes here."

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a "culture of corruption" that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.

The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Sometimes the data didn't line up as perfectly as scientists wanted.

David Rind told colleagues about inconsistent figures in the work for a giant international report: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what's in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we've managed Relevant Products/Services to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy...:)."

But in the end, global warming didn't go away, according to the vast body of research over the years.

None of the e-mails flagged by the AP and sent to three climate scientists viewed as moderates in the field changed their view that global warming is man-made and a threat. Nor did it alter their support of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which some of the scientists helped write.

"My overall interpretation of the scientific basis for (man-made) global warming is unaltered by the contents of these e-mails," said Gabriel Vecchi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.

Gerald North, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, headed a National Academy of Sciences study that looked at -- and upheld as valid -- Mann's earlier studies that found the 1990s were the hottest years in centuries.

"In my opinion the meaning is much more innocent than might be perceived by others taken out of context. Much of this is overblown," North said.

Mann contends he always has been upfront about uncertainties, pointing to the title of his 1999 study: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."

Several scientists found themselves tailoring their figures or retooling their arguments to answer online arguments -- even as they claimed not to care what was being posted to the Internet

"I don't read the blogs that regularly," Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona wrote in 2005. "But I guess the skeptics are making hay of their (sic) being a global warm (sic) event around 1450AD."

One person singled out for criticism in the e-mails is Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The blog focuses on statistical issues with scientists' attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times.

"We find that the authors are overreaching in the conclusions that they're trying to draw from the data that they have," McIntyre said in a telephone interview.

McIntyre, 62, of Toronto, was trained in math and economics and says he is "substantially retired" from the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.

Some e-mails said McIntyre's attempts to get original data from scientists are frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him.

McIntyre disagreed with how he is portrayed. "Everything that I've done in this, I've done in good faith," he said.

He also said he has avoided editorializing on the leaked e-mails. "Anything I say," he said, "is liable to be piling on."

The skeptics started the name-calling said Mann, who called McIntyre a "bozo," a "fraud" and a "moron" in various e-mails.

"We're human," Mann said. "We've been under attack unfairly by these people who have been attempting to dismiss us as frauds as liars."

The AP is mentioned several times in the e-mails, usually in reference to a published story. One scientist says his remarks were reported with "a bit of journalistic license" and "I would have rephrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released." The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.

Will more govts go universal Net access?

Will more govts go universal Net access?

Some European governments have in recent months stipulated that telecommunication operators in their countries were to make broadband access available to all citizens. At the same time, more countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, have plans to deploy next-generation broadband networks or improve existing infrastructure in the coming years.

In October, Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications passed a law requiring telcos in the country to provide Internet connection speeds of at least 1 megabit per second (Mbps) to some 5.2 million Finnish by July 2010. Last month, the Spanish government announced it was also targeting to offer affordable broadband with speeds of at least 1 Mbps to residents by 2011.

Meanwhile, Germany is on track to achieve full nationwide coverage of basic broadband services that would give users a minimum of 1 Mbps bandwidth by 2010, according to the country's Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. By 2014, at least 75 percent of the population should have access to a bandwidth of 50 Mbps, a spokesperson said in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia.

She added that the current status for basic broadband services is "close to 97 percent" coverage. As for the deployment of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) for high-speed Internet access, while less than 1 percent of households are currently connected, she believed that this will soon change as "[the] segment is about to sufficiently gain momentum".

According to Ovum's research director David Kennedy, the worldwide developments in high-speed broadband implementation and instituting access as a legal right will lead to "increasing pressure on governments to address digital divide issues in the near future". Particularly as these advanced networks are rolled out in urban cities, there will be a widening service gap between rural and urban areas, he noted.

Kennedy said that such pressures will partly be generated due to "internal political pressure" as well as "competitive pressure between different countries to attract investments".

Yet, not all countries are ready to mandate Internet access for all citizens.

Mark Lim, head of intellectual property of media and entertainment at Singapore-based law firm Tan Peng Chin, pointed out "it would be a bit of a stretch to characterize Internet access as a basic human right, at least not at this point of time."

In the case of Singapore, Lim said the local authorities encourage all of its residents to be connected to the Internet, and "many" of the countries policies, such as in education, support the vision.

Quickening NBN adoption in APAC
According to an Ovum study of next-generation access in the Asia-Pacific region, the region "is the world leader in next-generation access development" and "leads the world in the amount of fiber being deployed". The study attributed the rapid deployment to government initiatives, a highly competitive environment and the keenness of providing IPTV (Internet Protocol television) and other content services over their infrastructure.

Fiber installations typically refer to FTTH, FTTB and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN), the report released in October said.

Singapore is one such country in the region hoping to tap on ICT as a strategic enabler to spur its economy in the future.

Following Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's 2006 Budget Speech, which outlined plans to build a new national broadband network (NBN), the nation's ICT regulator the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) further defined a roadmap to realize the Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) vision. According to IDA's blueprint, the NBN is expected to be available across the island by 2015, providing households and businesses with Web access speeds exceeding 1 Gbps (gigabit per second).

Progress has been made toward that goal, with OpenNet, the appointed consortium to build Singapore's NBN, announcing in August that it has connected the first home with dark fiber.

The Ovum study reported that Singapore had approximately 1.1 million broadband subscribers, with household penetration reaching 94.8 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2009,. The analyst firm said it expects FTTH and FTTB subscriptions to reach 390,000, or 35 percent household penetration rate, by 2012.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan, the global leader in FTTH deployment, both in terms of subscribers and low price according to the report, is on pace to achieve its targets of providing 100 percent broadband access to its citizens, and 90 percent FTTH coverage by 2010. These objectives were set out in its 2010 Next-Generation Networking strategy announced in 2006, said the report. According to statistics dated June 2007 by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, broadband penetration was 95.6 percent, while FTTH hit 84.1 percent.

China, said to be one of the fastest growing broadband markets in the world in the Ovum report, is relying on its "local governments" to spur its NBN project. Many of these local administrations have been signing agreements with provincial offices of local telcos such as China Mobile and China Telecom, to build up its broadband infrastructure throughout 2009, said the report.

Cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, for example, have plans to build "smart cities" based on FTTH and FTTB access technologies. The fiber-based networks are expected to boast 100 percent coverage by 2012, Ovum noted in the report.

The Ovum report also said that Australia is currently working on developing a "wholesale only" FTTH access network to reach 90 percent of its population over seven to eight years, with the remaining 10 percent serviced by "wireless and other technologies". The Australian government has indicated that it will invest A$4.7 billion (US$4.3 billion), and is looking to raise more funds through private investments, according to the study.

Golden ratios' for female facial beauty - Beauty - Life - The Times of India

Golden ratios' for female facial beauty - Beauty - Life - The Times of India

'Golden ratios' for female facial beauty

A new study has helped researchers from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Toronto discover ‘golden ratios’ for Woman

They have found that the distance between a woman’s eyes and the distance between her eyes and her mouth are key factors in determining how attractive she is to others.

For the study, Pamela Pallett and Stephen Link of UC San Diego and Kang Lee of the University of Toronto tested the existence of an ideal facial feature arrangement.

They successfully identified the optimal relation between the eyes, the mouth and the edge of the face for individual beauty.

In four separate experiments, the researchers asked university students to make paired comparisons of attractiveness between female faces with identical facial features but different eye-mouth distances and different distances between the eyes.

They found two ‘golden ratios,’ one for length and one for width. Female faces were judged more attractive when the vertical distance between their eyes and the mouth was approximately 36 percent of the face’s length, and the horizontal distance between their eyes was approximately 46 percent of the face’s width.

These proportions correspond with those of an average face.

"People have tried and failed to find these ratios since antiquity. The ancient Greeks found what they believed was a ‘golden ratio’ – also known as ‘phi’ or the ‘divine proportion’ – and used it in their architecture and art,” Pallett said.

“Some even suggest that Leonardo Da Vinci used the golden ratio when painting his ‘Mona Lisa.’ But there was never any proof that the golden ratio was special. As it turns out, it isn’t.

“Instead of phi, we showed that average distances between the eyes, mouth and face contour form the true golden ratios," Pallett added.

Lee said: "We already know that different facial features make a female face attractive – large eyes, for example, or full lips.”

"Our study conclusively proves that the structure of faces – the relation between our face contour and the eyes, mouth and nose – also contributes to our perception of facial attractiveness. Our finding also explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after a haircut, because hairdos change the ratios," Lee added.

Obama Techs Find Missing Pieces of Bush-Era Email Puzzle

Obama Techs Find Missing Pieces of Bush-Era Email Puzzle

Millions of Bush-era White House emails have been recovered, although it will be several years before any of their contents can be revealed. Obama administration IT specialists are attempting to clean up the record-keeping mess left by their predecessors, who seemed as though "they just didn't want the emails preserved," according to Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW.
Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House emails from the administration of President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost email from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record-keeping system.

The two private groups -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive -- said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered emails because they will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won't be available until 2014 at the earliest.
Poor Choices

The tally of missing emails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record-keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

The two private organizations say there is not yet a final count on the extent of missing White House email and there may never be a complete tally.

"Many poor choices were made during the Bush administration, and there was little concern about the availability of email records despite the fact that they were contending with regular subpoenas for records and had a legal obligation to preserve their records," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive.

"We may never discover the full story of what happened here," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "It seems like they just didn't want the emails preserved."

Sloan said the latest count of misplaced emails "gives us confirmation that the Bush administration lied when they said no emails were missing."
94 Missing Days Restored

The two groups say the 22 million White House emails were previously mislabeled and effectively lost.

The government now can find and search 22 million more emails than it could in late 2005, and the settlement means that the Obama administration will restore 94 calendar days of email from backup tape, said Kristen Lejnieks, an attorney representing the National Security Archive.

Sheila Shadmand, another lawyer representing the National Security Archive, said the Obama administration is making a strong effort to clean up "the electronic data mess left behind by the prior administration."

Records released as a result of the lawsuits reveal that the Bush White House was aware during the president's first term in office that the email system had serious archiving problems, which didn't become publicly known until 2006, when federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disclosed them during his criminal investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

A Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) document on the Bush White House's email problems states that Microsoft was called in to help find electronic messages in October 2003, more than two years before the problem surfaced publicly.

October 2003 was the month that the Justice Department began gearing up its criminal investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Plame, the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson.

Chinese Couple Sell Baby to Buy Cell Phone

Chinese Couple Sell Baby to Buy Cell Phone

According to a report in the China Global Times, a young Chinese couple sold their infant son and used the money to buy a cell phone.


Citing the Chongqing Economic Times, the China Global Times reports that a 19-year-old girl and her 21-year-old boyfriend sold their baby boy for 2,500 yuan ($366). The couple, both from the Chongqing Municipality, met online and quickly developed a real life relationship. 19-year-old Zhang Yao gave birth to their son in November but the couple believed they were not financially stable enough to raise a baby as neither of them had jobs.

Police say the two sold their son on December 2, six days after he was born, to a man named Li Yong. The baby's father, named only as Xin in the report, then used the money to buy a new cell phone. Li Yong is said to have attracted the attention of neighbors when he tried to re-sell the baby for four times the price.

The baby is currently in a welfare center but the couple is reportedly remorseful. The young mother claims she has been crying since she sold her son and now wants to raise the baby. The father has asked if he can take the baby out of the welfare center.

Police are working to contact the couple's parents. "We hope that the family can re-unite, and that the baby will be back with his mother soon," Wu Minghui, a police officer in the Longsha district, is quoted as saying.

The China Global Times reports police are investigating whether anyone should be held criminally responsible.

A pair of young lovers in Chongqing Municipality sold their baby boy for 2,500 yuan ($366), Chongqing Economic Times reported Thursday.

Police say the couple now feels remorse and wants the baby back.

The baby's mother Zhang Yao, 19, met the boyfriend surnamed Xin, 21, through the Internet. The two quickly developed an intimate relationship. Zhang gave birth to the baby late November, but they have not married.

Police say the couple believed they could not afford to raise a child. On December 2, six days after the baby was born, police say, they sold the newborn baby to a man who gave his name as Li Yong.

Li arranged to re-sell the baby for 10,000 yuan ($1,464) the next day, but his behavior alerted neighbors who called the police.

An investigation revealed that neither Zhang nor Xin held steady jobs and spent most of their time on the Internet.

Their parents were reluctant to support them, so the couple decided to give the baby away – for a price.

Xin told the police that he had used the 2,500 yuan to buy a new mobile phone.

The baby was transferred to a welfare center, the report said.

Wu Minghui, a police officer in the Longsha district, told the newspaper that both Zhang and Xin felt regret for their behavior.

Zhang told the police officer that she kept crying after her baby was sold, and she now wants to raise a child.

Xin also asked the officer whether he could take the baby back from the welfare center.

A staff member at the welfare center told the paper that the baby behaves well, is not afraid of strangers, and has a good appetite.

Wu said the police are trying to contact the parents of both Zhang and Xin.

"We hope that the family can re-unite, and that the baby will be back with his mother soon," he was quoted as saying.

Police are still investigating whether anyone should be held criminally responsible.

Lian Yi, a lawyer in the municipality, said that selling children for money is smuggling and is a criminal offence.

Global Times – Agencies