JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — A U.S.-based human rights group said China dramatically boosted small-arms sales to Sudan as violence escalated in Darfur. Beijing denied the group’s report on Friday.

The report released Thursday by Human Rights First said China is the biggest supplier of small arms to Sudan. It provided 90 percent of all the African nation’s small arms acquisitions between 2004 and 2006, totaling more than $50 million.

China ramped up its small-arms supply to Sudan almost fivefold in 2004 as others cut back to comply with a U.N. arms embargo, according to data Sudan provided to the United Nations.

Small arms such as assault rifles are the most common weapon used in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million people displaced in five years of fighting between African rebels and government troops allied with Arab militia known as janjaweed.

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“Since 1830, the House has met behind closed doors only three times,”according to the Congressional Research Service: “in 1979 to discussthe Panama Canal, in 1980 to discuss Central American assistance, andin 1983 to discuss U.S. support for paramilitary operations inNicaragua.”

On March 13, the House went into secret session once more to considerclassified matters concerning the Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceAct. After some extended discussion of the unusual practice, followedby a security check, public access to the proceedings was barred.

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Thirty pages into a memorandum discussing the legal boundaries of military interrogations in 2003, senior Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo tackled a question not often asked by American policymakers: Could the president, if he desired, have a prisoner’s eyes poked out?

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