Chinese company emails US company about buying a few million dollars of the US company's product. The terms of the deal are quickly worked out and the Chinese company suggests the American company go to China to sign the contract and celebrate the consummation of the deal.

The American gets to China (usually some fairly out of the way city in China) and is treated to what appears to the American to be a really expensive meal at which the contract is signed. At which point, the American company is told that Chinese custom requires that it buy the Chinese CEO an expensive gift and pay the notarization fee.

The American is then either taken to purchase a nice piece of jade and requested to pay a couple of thousand dollars for the notarization fee. Sometimes the American just gives the Chinese company people cash to go off and buy the gift on the American company's behalf.

It isn't until weeks later that the American learns that there is no deal and, in fact, there is no Chinese company either. The big lure of this scam is that nobody wants to fly all the way to China, have a great meal at someone else's expense, and then be too cheap to spend less than $10,000 more to seal the deal.

This China business scam was really popular four or five years ago, but it seemed to have really declined since then, presumably because word had spread among American manufacturers.

It appears China has found a new set of victims.

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are pocketing thousands of dollars in Federal Government immunisation incentives.

Opponents to childhood vaccines say it is unfair to be denied Federal Government cash because of their beliefs, and are exploiting a loophole to claim more than $2000 a child after registering as "conscientious objectors".

In July, the Gillard Government scrapped the $129 Maternity Immunisation Allowance, a specific payment to encourage parents to have their children immunised.

In an attempt to boost immunisation rates, it has now linked vaccination incentives to Family Tax Benefit A $2100 to be paid over three immunisation "check points" once children are fully immunised at ages one, two and five.

While parents have been warned they will lose their payment and the childcare benefit if they do not fully immunise their children, they are also being told exemptions will be given to objectors.

All they have to do to still receive the money is fill out a form supplied by the Federal Government.

The Federal Government's Department of Human Services website outlines the immunisation requirements.

It reads: "To meet the immunisation requirements, children will need to be fully immunised, be on a recognised immunisation catch-up schedule, or have an approved exemption."

The exemption forms are available from the Department of Human Services website.They require signatures of the parent/guardian of the child and recognised immunisation provider a GP or family doctor.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said it was a bizarre policy.

"This is a case of everyone wins a prize. It's a bit like getting the Baby Bonus without having a baby," Senator Xenophon said.

"Anti-vaxers", as they call themselves, are now joining parenting forums to encourage others not to be bullied by the Government and to give tips on how to get objection forms lodged quickly.

Residents of the mainly black South Side want stop-and-search tactics brought back as gang murders plague President Barack Obama's home city.

The cluster of young men hanging out on the porch of the run-down brick home cast menacing stares at the unknown car as a "spotter", a teen on a bicycle, talked into a mobile phone.

Beneath a tree across the street, burned red candle wax was the last remnant of an impromptu shrine for a 13-year-old boy, Tyquan Tyler, shot dead two weeks earlier by a killer just a few years older than him.

The assailant had run through an alleyway past a boarded-up home, mown down his victim and then disappeared back down the same route into a neighbouring street before the "ATM boys" could respond with their Glock pistols.

In the killing zones of Chicago's predominantly black and poor South Side, turf warfare is no longer waged for control of districts but street to street.

A splintering of traditional gangs into smaller factions - known as crews or cliques - with ever-younger members desperate to prove their tough-guy credentials is fuelling a murder rate that makes swathes of Chicago more lethal than Afghanistan.

Even as violent crime has decreased in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, the murder rate soared here by 38 per cent in the first six months of the year. There were 259 murders in that period, with another 18 so far in July.

Police have began an inquiry into a poverty-stricken woman in Bihar's Araria district selling her four-month-old son for just Rs 62 to a Nepalese couple, sources Sunday said.

"I was informed that a poor woman sold her child to a Nepalese couple. Police have now begun investigation into it," Araria police chief Shivdeep W. Lande told IANS on the telephone.

Shannu Khatun, in her mid-30s, who is struggling for survival, sold her son to a Nepalese couple at Forbesganj railway station, near the Indo-Nepal border in Araria, about 350 km from here, Saturday.

Khatun, along with her children, had left her village a few days ago and taken shelter at the Forbesganj railway station. She refuted that she had sold her child but admitted to giving away her child for his own sake.

But her eight-year-old elder daughter Sabina told some local residents that her mother sold her younger brother for a mere Nepalese Rs 100 (Indian Rs 62).

Syed Ahsan Ali, of the Railway Protection Force said Khatun had donated her child to a Nepalese couple. "She told us that she had not received any money for it."

Several young people, many of them graduates, move to tourist areas to find a seasonal job that helps them cope with the economic crisis that affects Spain. After months of unemployment they find themselves unable to pay a rent and decided to live in caves.

Ibiza Island is one of the favorite's destinations for those who desperately look for a season job. Many of them omit they graduates studies in their curriculums 'they recommend us to do so in the government job agency'. For them to be overqualified is one of the most normal disadvantages. You easily could find engineers, architects and philologist working on restaurants kitchens, hotels, or as bartenders.

Anto Nito, an agronomist engineer accepted to show his cave to this reporter. He ended his studies recently and found himself with no work opportunities and returning to his parent's home with empty pockets. His mother had suffered a reduction on her working hours and salary; his father lost most of his clients and is close to be unemployed. Anto Nito, who speaks three languages fluently and two more in medium level, went to Ibiza to find a job. He found there too many people from the Spanish peninsula with the same purpose and not enough work and accommodation for all.

Couples will soon be able to choose their life partner solely based on the compatibility of their genes instead of through love, a scientific conference has heard.
Due to the falling cost of DNA testing Britain is on the cusp of a new era of eugenics, according to a leading British scientist.

Prof Armand Leroi, of Imperial College London, said that within five to ten years it will be common for young people to pay to access their entire genetic code.

He told the Euroscience Open Forum 2012, in Dublin, that a desire to have a healthy baby will lead more to request access to the view the genes of any prospective partner.

Armed with this information, the couple could then use IVF to screen babies with incurable diseases.

While it was unlikely people will have the "luxury" of using the technology to design babies, by their intellect or eye colour, they would instead focus on stopping genetic diseases.

Addressing a session titled "I human: are new scientific discoveries challenging our identity as a species", he said the cost of genetic sequencing was falling so quickly that "it is going to become very, very accessible, very, very soon".

The cost of doing a complete genetic map of a person has fallen from $1 billion (£648m) more than a decade ago to about $4,000 (£2593).

He said eugenics were already available, with tens of thousands of unborn babies with Down's syndrome and other illnesses being aborted every year.

Clearwater, Florida - This city could soon outlaw a harrowing crime: sitting.

Sitting or lying down on sidewalks or other public rights of way on Clearwater Beach, downtown or in the East Gateway neighborhood could mean a $500 fine, 60 days in jail or both.
The sitting ban is among a flurry of new ordinances the City Council will consider Monday as part of its crackdown on homeless people.

The council also could drop the hammer on sleeping outside, panhandling and bathing in public sinks. Like public sitting, each crime would be an arrestable offense.

The sitting ban is one of the most extreme proposals in a city already known for welding shut public bathrooms, turning off access to water in public areas and discouraging donations to a long-running soup kitchen.

But city leaders say the proposed ordinances, similar to bans enforced in St. Petersburg, San Francisco and Seattle, will give police more authority to clean up areas known for attracting the down-and-out.

"We do have challenges on the street, and the public wants us to respond to those in a humane way," City Manager Bill Horne said. "Our residents support us having a little more influence and teeth in our rules."

Things are getting so rough in the Big Apple that even toddlers are getting mugged.

A cruel thug ripped a $400 gold chain off the neck of a 3-year-old boy who was sitting in his stroller and being pushed by his mom in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn on Tuesday, law-enforcement sources said.

The crook and an accomplice attacked tot Harvey Hernandez in the lobby of his family's Malcolm X Boulevard apartment building at 11:45 p.m. after following him, his teenage brother and mom Riyana Guerrero home from a Laundromat.

"I was screaming 'Let go of my baby! Let go of my baby!'" the mom told The Post in Spanish yesterday.

"[The man] didn't say anything - he just looked at us and laughed, almost mocking us.

"How could he do this to a helpless little baby!"

Guerrero believes that the thieves might have even kidnapped the boy if neighbors, alerted by her screams, didn't scare them away.

Canada, Edmonton - A protester who made it into a Conservative party barbecue in Edmonton says he was dragged out of the event and arrested by police when he tried to ask Immigration Minister Jason Kenney a question.

Bashir Mohamed, 17, planned to confront Kenney about the federal government's cuts to refugee health care.

Mohamed says he was born in a refugee camp in Kenya and came to Canada with his parents when he was three.

He said he stood up and began to ask a question while Kenney was speaking, but was quickly grabbed by four men who pulled him outside.

He says police arrested him, but he was later released without charges.

"The police were very nice. They just wanted to figure out what was going on. I have nothing against the police," Bashir said shortly after he was released.

Steven Dollansky, the president of the Edmonton Centre Conservative Association and a member of the group that organized the barbecue, explained that the protester was removed because he interrupted the minister in the middle of his speech.

"He stood up and screamed at the minister during his speech. That was not the appropriate time to speak and he was asked to leave," Dollansky said.