Chinese police have broken a crime ring that passed off over $1m (€762,380) in rat and small mammal meat as mutton, authorities said, in a food safety crackdown that coincides with a bird flu outbreak and other environmental pressures.

Two Chinese men have died from a lesser-known type of bird flu in the first known human deaths from the strain.

Two women, believed to be the world’s oldest and tallest, have died.

Sixty-two workers were taken ill after a chemical leak at a pharmaceutical factory in eastern China.

A landslide caused by rains in southern China left 21 people missing today, adding to a growing death toll from China’s worst flood season in a decade, which is expected to worsen with heavy rains forecast across the country.

China declared an official emergency today in eight provinces hit by a drought that has left nearly four million people without drinking water.

Hand, foot and mouth disease has killed three children and made about 110 others ill in eastern China, state media reported.

A young Chinese man confessed to killing a Canadian model during a robbery at her apartment, police in Shanghai said today.

The death toll from a viral illness that is infecting children around China has risen to 34, state media said today, as the number of reported infections jumped to nearly 25,000.

The number of children infected with a deadly virus in China has nearly doubled in the last two days.

Snow and ice has caused chaos in China, disrupting the nation's busiest holiday travel season.

BLIZZARDS stranded more than half a million train passengers in a Chinese town yesterday.

Blizzards stranded more than half a million train passengers in a Chinese town today.

MORE than 100 people have died in floods and landslides in China, and tens of thousands have fled their homes in the east where dykes are in danger of being breached by a swollen river.

Nearly half a million people have been evacuated from a potentially deadly flood zone surrounding central China’s swollen Huai River, state media reported today.

Floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 94 people and left 25 others missing in seven Chinese provinces, state media reported today.

At least 14 people were killed when a tornado ripped through two provinces in eastern China, state media reported today.

Bird flu has killed again in Indonesia and is picking up speed elsewhere in Asia, with fresh outbreaks in Vietnam and a new human case reported in China, officials said today.

South-east China braced for more torrential rain today after Typhoon Saomai slammed into the region, killing 105 people and leaving another 190 missing.

China’s death toll from Typhoon Saomai rose to at least 104 today, with another 190 missing, as the most powerful storm to strike the country in five decades weakened into a tropical depression.

Tornados and torrential rains killed at least 30 people as storms battered eastern China earlier this week, with millions more affected by flooding and other storm damage, state media and officials said today.

A man in central China hacked a neighbour to death then took 19 primary school students hostage, killing one, before police subdued him.

A 35-year-old Chinese woman who handled sick and dying chickens has died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, becoming the mainland’s sixth human fatality, the government and the World Health Organisation said today.

The deaths of two more people in China and two in Turkey have brought the global toll from bird flu to 78, the World Health Organisation said today as it urged stepped-up preparation in case the illness turns into a pandemic strain.

A FARMER in north-east China has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the government said yesterday, making her the country’s fifth confirmed human case of the disease.

A 10-year-old girl in southern China has tested positive for the H5N1 virus, the government said today, making her the country’s fourth human bird flu case since last month.

China reported its second confirmed human death from bird flu as it prepared to test a vaccine on people amid increasingly drastic measures to contain outbreaks of the disease in poultry, state media said today.

China today reported its second confirmed human fatality from bird flu.

Blood tests on a schoolteacher who fell ill in an area of China that suffered a bird flu outbreak show he doesn’t have the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus, a World Health Organisation official said today.

China reported its 16th and 17th bird flu outbreaks in poultry in the north and a central province today, despite massive efforts to vaccinate billions of farm birds.

China reported its first three confirmed human cases of bird flu today – two of them fatalities.

China’s Ministry of Health today confirmed the country’s first three human cases of bird flu, the government announced.

China said today that it is taking effective measures to prevent the spread of bird flu and keep it from infecting people as the world’s most populous nation reported three outbreaks of the disease in a week.

A bird-flu outbreak has killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in central China in the country’s third case of the disease in two weeks, the government announced today.

An Indonesian man has died of bird flu, raising the country’s human toll to four, officials said today, as international health experts prepared to go house-to-house to search for infected poultry.

Flooding and landslides triggered by Typhoon Talim killed at least 45 people on China’s mainland and left 21 missing, the government said in Beijing today.

A BUS was swept away by fast, muddy flood waters in south China, the latest in a string of disasters across the country where 536 people have died in floods and landslides this year.

A Chinese man has been sentenced to two and a half years in jail for digging up a woman’s corpse and eating her ears, nose and breasts, the government has said.

China today announced a new outbreak of bird flu while Thailand said it had a suspected case in a return of the highly contagious disease that devastated birds earlier this year and killed 24 people.

China announced a new suspected SARS case today as authorities investigated the most recent outbreak in a bid to discover how it spread and whether lab procedures were to blame.

Nearly 500 people were in quarantine in China’s capital Beijing and a southern province today as authorities raced to contain a small eruption of SARS before a national holiday puts millions of travellers on the road.

China was investigating four new suspected SARS cases in the capital today - days after it confirmed two cases linked to a Beijing research lab.

China confirmed two cases of Sars today and said the mother of one patient has died, apparently the first Sars fatality in the country since last July.

China announced new Sars cases today, raising the total this week to two confirmed and two suspected patients.