The floodlit cream shells of the famed Opera House dimmed today as Sydney became the world’s first major city to plunge itself into darkness for the second worldwide Earth Hour, a global campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.

Patients leapt from the windows of a four-storey hospital in northeastern China to escape a fire that killed at least 39 people, the government said today.

A cache of 3,000 grenades, artillery shells and other bombs believed to have been left by Chinese forces at the end of the Second World War has been unearthed in a city in China’s north-east.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder arrived in Beijing today for a visit expected to include talks on trade and the European Union’s 15-year arms embargo on China.

A graduate in China has been turned down for dozens of sales jobs, because her name means "lose money".

Li Yuqin, who was plucked from a girl’s school at age 15 to become the fourth wife of China’s last emperor, has died aged 73.