A massive explosion hit a food shop in eastern China during the breakfast rush on Friday, killing two people and injuring 55 others, 12 of them seriously, officials said.

North Korea has fired three ballistic missiles off its east coast in a show of force timed to coincide with the G20 summit in China, Seoul has said.

THE problem about agreeing on paper to save the planet is the difficulty of actually getting down to the business of doing it in reality.

Authorities in China have ordered hundreds of factories to cut back activity ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou in early September, in a bid to ensure clean air, but the restrictions may cut oil demand in the world’s second-biggest oil consumer.

Beijing has criticised new European tariffs on Chinese steel as "unjustifiable" protectionism, weeks after commerce ministers from G20 nations pledged to promote free trade.

Some of the stranger stories from around the world

Nearly one million people have been evacuated as Typhoon Chan-hom hit the Chinese coast south of Shanghai with winds of up to 100mph.

China’s state planning agency yesterday released a list of more than 1,000 proposed projects totalling 1.97tn yuan (€289.5bn) that it is inviting private investors to help fund, build, and operate.

The richest people got richer in 2014, adding $92bn (€75.6bn) to their collective fortune in the face of falling energy prices and the geopolitical turmoil incited by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Cork has taken the first steps towards twinning with Liverpool.

Future megacities may be filled with bicycles instead of cars. Copenhagen is leading the way in lowering CO2 emissions and increasing the mobility of citizens, writes Elisabeth Braw.

Short sellers are making their first bets on a retreat in Alibaba Group a week after the company priced the world’s biggest-ever initial public offering.

Alibaba Group Holding slipped in its second day of trading yesterday after jumping almost 40% in its debut as bankers boosted the size of the Chinese e-commerce company’s share offering to a global record of $25bn (€19.5bn).

Alibaba Group Holding, the e-commerce company started in 1999 with $60,000 by Jack Ma, yesterday cemented its status as a symbol of China’s economic emergence by raising $21.8bn (€16.9bn) in a US initial public offering.

Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse named after a fabled, poor woodsman who discovers a thieves’ den full of treasures, is ready to strike it rich on Wall Street.

VOLVO is designing its first model under the ownership of Chinese billionaire Li Shufu’s Zhejiang Geely with an emphasis on car safety to revive worldwide sales.

VOLVO is designing its first model under the ownership of Chinese billionaire Li Shufu’s Zhejiang Geely with an emphasis on car safety to revive worldwide sales.

The listing of Alibaba on the stock exchange in New York could be the largest technology debut in history, writes Alexei Oreskovic.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China’s biggest e-commerce company, will begin the process of filing for an initial public offering in the US that may be the biggest since Facebook.

Shanghai city officials have closed more than 60 parks and the city zoo as residents wade through flood waters after heavy rains hit the financial hub in the aftermath of Typhoon Fitow.

Archaeologists say they have discovered some of the world’s oldest known primitive writing, dating back 5,000 years, in eastern China.

The mother of the Chinese baby trapped in a sewer pipe in an ordeal caught on video raised the initial alarm and was present for the entire two-hour rescue but did not admit giving birth until confronted by police.

Irish students will attend marital arts and origami classes as part of one of the country’s largest ever student exchange trips to China.

Kerry Group has signed a partnership deal with Beingmate of China to supply dairy ingredients for infant nutrition applications in China.

A bus driver who saved 24 of his passengers after being fatally injured by a piece of metal that flew through his bus’s windshield has been praised as a hero in China.

Sinn Féin has called for a “junket crackdown” after new figures showed a cash-strapped local authority spent almost €300,000 on visits, trips, conferences, and seminars in two years.

Paul Casey will be thinking of his closet as well as his clubs when he takes to the Binhai Lake course at this week’s Volvo China Open in Tianjin.

The Irish Dairy Board has launched Kerrygold UHT Milk in the Chinese market as part of a plan to extend the Kerrygold product range in the growing market.

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.

Ireland’s financial fall from grace has seen the capital named as one of the three worst performing metropolitan economies in the world.

IN the grand plan of things the Cycle to Work Scheme can hardly be described as world changing but in its own small, quiet, effective way it has been revolutionary and eye-opening.

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 bullet train crashed into another high-speed train in eastern China, killing at least 35 people, injuring 191 others and once again raising safety concerns about the country’s fast-expanding rail network.

China's state media has reported that the death toll from today's train crash has risen to at least 32.

Eleven people were killed and 89 others injured when a bullet train lost power and was hit by another train today, China’s state media reported.

A two-year-old Chinese girl fell 10 floors from her family’s apartment window and survived after being caught by a woman passing by, state media reported today.

Arsenal have announced a pre-season tour of Asia in July which will take in Malaysia and China.

A DELEGATION from Cork signed a memorandum of understanding with one of China’s most pro-business cities yesterday.

HEALTH authorities in eastern China said they have so far detected no human cases of bird flu after a woman in Hong Kong who had visited the region contracted the potentially fatal disease.

Geely Group, one of China’s main independent carmakers, is considering bidding for Ford Motor Co’s Volvo Cars unit in alliance with an unnamed investment partner, a company spokesman confirmed today.

Manchester United set off for Malaysia and the first stop on a four-match tour of the Far East without their number one draw, two new signings and Nemanja Vidic.

Manchester United will open their high-profile summer tour of Asia against a Malaysian Select XI in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, July 18.

Leading Chinese regulatory affairs company CIRS is to establish its European headquarters in Dundalk with the creation of up to 26 jobs, it was announced today.