The man once considered China’s most-wanted fugitive was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that reached into the highest echelons of the Communist Party and involved a decade-long extradition fight.

Premier Wen Jiabao, China’s top economic official, said its state-owned banks are monopolies that must be broken up, acknowledging mounting economic and political pressure to reform an industry whose vast profits are fuelling public anger.

Chinese police have arrested 608 suspects and rescued 178 children in a raid of two separate child trafficking networks, authorities said today.

A Chinese restaurant is using robots to cook noodles.

More than 200,000 coastal residents in eastern China have been evacuated and thousands of ships called back to shore today as Typhoon Muifa bears down on the country after battering the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan.

A massive landslide in south-west China has killed at least 23 people, and 24 are missing after flash floods in the east, state media reported today.

A man armed with a meat cleaver killed seven children and two adults at a Chinese nursery today, the latest in a series of savage assaults on the country's schools.

A KNIFE-wielding maniac has attacked a class of Chinese four-year-olds, injuring 28 children in the country’s third such rampage this month.

A former doctor armed with a large knife killed eight children and injured five others today at an elementary school in eastern China, a local official said.

POLICE in China have begun reuniting parents with children who were abducted by child traffickers.

A TYPHOON pummelled China’s eastern coast yesterday, toppling houses, flooding villages and forcing nearly a million people to flee to safety.

A typhoon slammed into China’s eastern coast today, forcing the evacuation of nearly a million people.

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

More than 540,000 people evacuated low-lying areas along China’s southeast coast as Typhoon Sepat roared toward the mainland today after battering Taiwan.

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

TYPHOON Saomai, the most powerful storm to hit China in five decades, raged ashore yesterday and churned across the crowded south-east, killing at least two people, wrecking houses and capsizing ships after 1.5 million residents were evacuated.

Typhoon Saomai, the most powerful storm to hit China in five decades, raged ashore today and churned across the crowded south-east, killing at least two people, wrecking houses and capsizing ships after 1.5 million residents were evacuated.

The Asia-wide death toll from Tropical Storm Chanchu rose to 91 today, with nearly 250 Vietnamese fisherman still missing at sea and 28 reported dead as the tempest moved offshore again after battering southern China.

Powerful storm Chanchu killed two children in southern China today to bring its death toll in Asia to 39, while flooding scores of homes in an area where more than 600,000 people were evacuated.

China today reported that a 41-year-old woman has become the country’s newest human fatality from the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu.

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.

Torrential rains and flooding from Typhoon Talim killed at least 10 people and left 15 missing in eastern China, the government said today.

A Chinese court has ordered the death sentence for two men convicted of heading gangs that bought 82 children from their parents and sold them to families in Singapore, state media reports and an official said today.

More than 700 people marched on Hong Kong’s top appeals court today, as the territory prepared to begin forcibly deporting hundreds of mainland Chinese migrants.

A tanker loaded with 62,000 gallons of diesel has sunk off southeastern China following a collision with another ship.

A typhoon that ripped through southern China damaging thousands of homes and demolished sugarcane and banana plantations has caused more than $446m of damage.