FLOODS and landslides across Asia plunged millions into misery yesterday as rubble-strewn waters killed at least 127 in north-western China and four million Pakistanis faced food shortages amid their country’s worst-ever flooding.

CHINA observed a day of national mourning for victims of its killer quake, with newspaper front pages bathed in black and flags lowered to half-mast around the country.

AUTHORITIES killed rats and fleas yesterday as they disinfected a remote farming town in north-western China that was sealed off after three people died of pneumonic plague.

NEARLY 100 monks were arrested yesterday after hundreds of Tibetans attacked a police station and government officials in north-western China on Saturday.

Nearly 100 Tibetan monks were arrested or turned themselves in today after hundreds of protesters attacked a police station in north-western China, state media reported.

A Chinese astronaut today performed the nation’s first-ever spacewalk, the latest milestone in an ambitious programme that is increasingly rivalling the US and Russia in its rapid expansion.

China successfully launched its latest space shot today putting a three-man crew into orbit.

TAINTED milk formula has killed one baby and caused the development of kidney stones in dozens of others who may have drunk the same product, Chinese authorities said yesterday, in a grim reminder of a milk-powder scandal that killed 13 infants four years ago.

Firefighters were forced to give up trying to extinguish a blaze today that engulfed a 12-storey wholesale market building in north-western China because of fears it may collapse, state media said.

A teacher in north-western China has been sentenced to death for raping 18 primary school girls aged nine and 10, state media reported today.

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.

A cargo plane crashed into a residential area near an airport in north-western China today.