The following question came up on Stack Overflow:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9051330/possible-bug-in-org-mode-export-of-item-with

The following sample org file does not export as possibly expected.

,-------------------------------------------
| #+TITLE: Bug?
| #+OPTIONS: *:nil toc:nil author:nil
|
| - hello (*) I would like to have two items
| - may (*) I please?
`-------------------------------------------

Instead of the two items being listed with (*) as a part of their
items they are placed on a single line as though they were still being
wrapped in bold tags. I tested this further and it occurs in LaTeX,
HTML and ODT exports. ASCII does the right thing and exports it as
two list items.

HTML:
,----------------------------------------------------------------------
| <ul>
| <li>hello (*) I would like to have two items - may (*) I please?
| </li>
| </ul>
`----------------------------------------------------------------------

LaTeX:
,-------------------------------------------------------------------
| \begin{itemize}
| \item hello (*) I would like to have two items - may (*) I please?
| \end{itemize}
`-------------------------------------------------------------------

Is this the expected behaviour when *:nil is set on export? I know
you can simply escape the *'s as \* to get the desired result (both
with and without *:nil). However it does seem odd to me that it will
insert the *s as expected in the export, while at the same time keep
the text wrapping that *[...]* creates for bold-face purposes.

Regards,
Jonathan