MACAU - VISITORS to Macau grew by about 12 per cent in 2008, slower than the previous year as tighter visa rules and an economic slump curbed travel to the Chinese gambling city, government figures showed on Friday.

BEIJING - ANGRY parents of victims in China's milk scandal accused the government on Friday of holding show trials and giving little help to their sick children, after the high-profile sentencing of 21 people.

A court in northern China on Thursday gave two men the death penalty and jailed 18 others for terms ranging from two years to life for their roles in the poisoning of milk last year with the industrial chemical melamine.

BEIJING - CHINESE parents whose children were sickened after drinking contaminated milk pushed the government for greater accountability and compensation on Friday, a day after a court handed down two death penalties and long prison terms for 19 other defendants.

Milk formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine has been blamed for causing the deaths of at least six infants and sickening nearly 300,000 others with kidney stones and other problems.