China said...that it had broken up a child labor ring...Authorities in southern China’s Guangdong Province...said they had made several arrests and had already “rescued” more than 100 children from factories in the city of Dongguan, one of the country’s largest manufacturing centers for electronics and consumer goods sold around the world...The children, mostly between the ages of 13 and 15, were often tricked or kidnapped by employment agencies in an impoverished part of western Sichuan Province called Liangshan and then sent to factory towns in Guangdong, where they were sometimes forced to work 300 hours a month...The abuses may also reflect the combined pressures of worker shortages, high inflation and a rising currency that have reduced profit margins of some Chinese factories and forced them to scramble for an edge — even an illegal one — to stay competitive. [Also refers to Wal-mart.]