China will ensure steady and robust growth by boosting domestic demand and rebalancing its economy to help counter the obstacles hindering a global recovery, President Hu Jintao pledged to Asia-Pacific leaders gathered for a regional summit.

Cuba has announced the first details of a highly anticipated new law meant to loosen rules on the buying and selling of homes and cars, which have been tightly controlled since soon after the 1959 revolution.

President Raul Castro has named a new economy minister, and put the outgoing minister in charge of implementing economic reforms that will be hammered out at a Communist Party Congress.

FIDEL CASTRO resigned five years ago from all his official positions, including head of Cuba’s Communist Party, a pre-eminent job in the island’s political pantheon that he was thought to still hold.

The Dalai Lama today brushed aside China’s furious reaction to his receiving a prestigious award from US President George Bush, saying he rejected Tibetan independence and was eager to meet leaders in Beijing.

China has issued strict new rules for TV talent shows, banning mass audience voting by mobile phone text message or internet and bumping the programmes out of prime time.

China is stepping up its search for the pilot of a jet missing since the collision with a US spy plane.