Sixth seed Roberta Vinci crashed out in the first round of the Guangzhou Open on Monday after losing in straight sets to Lin Zhu.

A five-year-old sex tape of an 18-year-old woman allegedly hired by developers to sleep with a city official is causing yet another scandal for China’s ruling Communists in the city formerly led by fallen politician Bo Xilai.

A five-year-old sex tape of an 18-year-old woman allegedly hired by developers to sleep with a city official is causing yet another scandal for China’s ruling Communists in the city formerly led by fallen politician Bo Xilai.

China has achieved a “soft landing” in its economic slowdown, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said today while cautioning that more sweeping reforms are needed to ensure healthy growth in the longer term.

A dissident Chinese writer has been sentenced to seven years in prison for writing a poem urging his countrymen to gather at a public square, a human rights group said today.

A former graduate student from China who prosecutors said decapitated a classmate in a US campus cafe because she rejected his romantic advances was sentenced to life in prison.

China’s state television said 26 people have died in a landslide that buried an iron ore plant and several homes in a valley in southwestern China.

POLICE in central China have launched a manhunt for a love-lorn junk collector suspected in the axe murders of eight people, including a two-year-old boy and his grandmother, state media has reported.

The Dalai Lama’s envoys and Chinese officials are planning a second round of talks, China’s state-run news agency said today.

CHINA unveils an engineering marvel this weekend — a railway to Tibet that features hi-tech systems to stabilise tracks over permafrost and cabins enriched with oxygen to help riders cope with high altitudes.

SOCCER revolutions in the People's Republic of China have seen many false dawns, but newly appointed national coach Zhu Guanghu is determined to start the re-building process at Lansdowne Road tonight.

China has banned a Nike television commercial showing US basketball star LeBron James in a battle with an animated cartoon kung fu master, saying the ad insults Chinese national dignity.

The London Stock Exchange will set up an Asia-Pacific office in Hong Kong in a bid to attract listings from mainland Chinese companies, it was reported today.

CHINA said yesterday that hard-liners in Taiwan were playing a deceitful and dangerous game by seeking independence, and appealed to the United States to oppose those seeking to split the island from the mainland.

A mass poisoning at a lunch held after a funeral in central China killed 10 people and left 23 in hospital in serious condition.

THE World Health Organisation lifted its travel warning against Beijing yesterday, giving a clean bill of health to the capital of the nation where the SARS outbreak began.

A MAJOR upturn in the media business and the economy in general was predicted by influential British advertising and media commentator Martin Sorrell in Dublin yesterday.

Thirteen people have been killed in an explosion at an illegal fireworks factory in northwest China, a local government official said today.

Vice President Hu Jintao was appointed as leader of China’s Communist Party today, handing him the country’s most powerful position and making him a certain bet to replace Jiang Zemin as president next year.

It’s a cornerstone of China’s foreign policy, invoked vehemently whenever critics challenge its human rights record or its policy towards Taiwan: Don’t interfere in another country’s internal affairs.

Chinese premier Zhu Rongji will attend a state dinner in Dublin Castle tonight as part of his four-day official visit to Ireland.

Chinese premier Zhu Rongji was greeted by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern at Dublin Airport today at the start of his four-day official visit to Ireland.

Zhu Rongji, Premier of the People’s Republic of China, will this weekend become the first visiting foreign dignitary to be accommodated at Farmleigh, the Government-owned stately home.

Authorities in central China have sentenced 23 people to prison terms of up to 13 years for a Christmas fire in a disco that killed 309 people, a court official said today.

China says it has the right to inspect the US Navy surveillance plane that made an emergency landing on Hainan island.