China’s official news agency said a man was given the death sentence for his role in a factory brawl linked to deadly riots in China’s western Xinjiang region.

CHINA celebrated its wealth and rising might with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles in Beijing yesterday, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.

A COMMON illness that typically causes little more than a fever and rash has killed 24 children in China, and health officials fear the worst may be yet to come as outbreaks occur in neighbouring countries.

Eight disabled children suffocated in bed at a care home in China after their quilts caught fire from a burning anti-mosquito coil.

The worst blizzards to hit China in 50 years showed no signs of lessening today with cities blacked out, transport systems paralysed and a bus crash on an icy road that killed at least 25 people.

China’s Agriculture Ministry has confirmed a suspected outbreak of H5N1 bird flu among ducks in southern China, Hong Kong’s health secretary said today.

Chinese toy inspectors set fire to Elmo’s buggy white eyes, tugged on Dora the Explorer’s arms and scraped off paint from plastic pieces of a “Barbie hot tub party bus” kit in front of foreign journalists, in a bid to repair the damage caused by the worldwide toy recalls.

AVIAN flu extended its grip on Europe yesterday, as Poland reported that two dead swans had the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus and Austria confirmed that several cats had been infected.

people convicted of drug trafficking in China were executed and six others were sentenced to death ahead of International Anti-Drugs Day.

THE bird flu that has raged through chicken farms in Asia and killed at least three people in Vietnam could become a bigger problem for the region than SARS, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

THE Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus returned to haunt China for the first time in six months as a suspected case in southern Guangdong province was upgraded to a confirmed case by senior health officials.

Flooding and landslides, caused by storms in southern China, have killed 14 people.