New China News Agency

Wu Lengxi, 83, a former head of the official New China News Agency and an ardent supporter of the late Communist leader Mao Tse-tung, died Sunday in Beijing. The cause of death was not reported. Wu, who also served as editor-in-chief of the Communist Party's flagship newspaper People's Daily and vice minister of propaganda, joined the party in 1938 at its wartime base in the northern town of Yanan.

China's state media warned Tuesday that U.S. plans to press Beijing through the World Trade Organization over its control of special industrial minerals known as rare earths could trigger a backlash and sully bilateral relations. The official New China News Agency said in a commentary that China's export quotas were aimed at protecting its resources and environment in accordance with WTO rules. "It is rash and unfair for the United States to put forward a lawsuit against China before the WTO, which may hurt economic relations between the world's largest and second-largest economies," the commentary said.

Protesters in Chinese-controlled Tibet were arrested during a riot that erupted after two Buddhist monks were taken into police custody, according to the government's news agency. The monks were arrested after a dispute with a shopkeeper, and the subsequent unrest triggered a crackdown, according to the New China News Agency. The incident occurred in mid-November but was only recently reported in China.

Stepping up the pressure against China over trade in an election year, the Obama administration Tuesday launched a case with the World Trade Organization aimed at forcing the Chinese to halt their export restrictions of rare earths -- minerals that are vital to such products as hybrid vehicles and cellphones. The move by the United States was joined by the European Union and Japan, and came despite Chinese state media warnings that it would trigger a backlash and antagonize trade relations between the world's two largest economies.

President Yang Shangkun on Monday greeted the first officials from Honduras to visit China and said the two countries should develop contacts, although they do not have diplomatic relations, the New China News Agency reported.

China executed six people Tuesday for stealing public equipment, including rails, electrical wire and material from oil fields, the official New China News Agency reported.

A devastating hailstorm that swept across eastern Anhui province killed three people, injured more than 100 and damaged 300,000 homes, the official New China News Agency said Friday.

An estimated 15 million rats have been killed in an extermination campaign in Peking that began in November, the official New China News Agency said Friday.

A torrent of water laden with toxic waste that escaped into the Yellow River earlier this month killed fish and forced factories to close, the New China News Agency said Tuesday.

Two Chinese men who murdered an American man aboard a train in June were executed today, the state-run New China News Agency said. Cui Yuzhong, 23, and Dai Wenxin, 27, workers from Benxi, Liaoning province, were convicted Aug. 12 of robbing and murdering Ewald Cheer, 61, a Chinese language instructor from San Angelo, Tex.

China called on the United States to "cure its addiction to debts" and "learn to live within its means" in a searing commentary published Saturday by the official New China News Agency in response to Standard & Poor's historic downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating a day earlier. China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. federal debt, blamed "shortsighted political wrangling in Washington" for creating the financial morass that threatens to undermine the global economy.

After languishing for more than two months in prison without formal charges, China's most famous dissident artist was abruptly released on bail late Wednesday. The official New China News Agency reported that Ai had been freed "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from. " The 54-year-old artist is reported to suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure, although he was not known to be seriously ill. More likely the release was a belated response by Chinese authorities to the international reproach that followed Ai's arrest April 3 at the Beijing airport.

China will tighten monetary policy next year, the country's Communist Party leadership said Friday, signaling the world's second-largest economy will likely slow down in the coming months to combat inflation and settle into a more sustainable pace of growth. The announcement by the nine-member Politburo, which was made through the state New China News Agency, said China would shift to a "prudent" monetary policy from a "moderately loose" approach. The decision comes after two years of unprecedented bank lending has flooded the economy with excess liquidity.

China on Thursday warned that a bill passed by the U.S. House enabling tariffs against currency-manipulating countries could damage ties between the world's two biggest economies. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China "firmly opposes" the legislation and told American lawmakers not to engage in protectionism. Earlier in the day, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry told state-run media that the legislation violated free-trade rules and would do little to narrow the United States' massive trade deficit with China.

A dispute between China and Japan over the arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain shows Beijing's desire to assert itself on the world stage without severely damaging its primary goal of continuing its rapid growth. In the two weeks since the fishing trawler collided with Japanese patrol boats near a group of disputed islands, Beijing has canceled ministerial level contact with Tokyo and Chinese travel agencies have been told to stop offering trips to Japan, a destination for 1.8 million Chinese tourists last year.

Chinese President Hu Jintao promised North Korean leader Kim Jong Il help in developing the North's economy and Kim spoke of his desire to restart nuclear talks during a summit Friday in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, the Chinese government said Monday. The belated announcement put an end to a five-day state visit that was bizarrely secretive even by the standards of the 68-year-old Kim, one of the world's most reclusive rulers. Kim slipped across the border into China in his armored train early Thursday, eluding detection by border residents and journalists and giving a very public snub to former President Carter, who was in Pyongyang to successfully win the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American held since January for illegally entering the country.

China and Vietnam have conducted an exchange of prisoners on the tense border between the rival Communist nations, the official New China News Agency reported Sunday. China handed over 34 Vietnamese, including 25 "armed personnel" and four "spies," and Vietnam returned 27 Chinese, the agency said. It described the Chinese prisoners as "border inhabitants they (Vietnam) had kidnaped."

Stepping up the pressure against China over trade in an election year, the Obama administration Tuesday launched a case with the World Trade Organization aimed at forcing the Chinese to halt their export restrictions of rare earths -- minerals that are vital to such products as hybrid vehicles and cellphones. The move by the United States was joined by the European Union and Japan, and came despite Chinese state media warnings that it would trigger a backlash and antagonize trade relations between the world's two largest economies.

Chinese officials declared Sunday a national day of mourning to remember the more than 1,200 people killed by recent flooding that still held parts of the country in its grip. More rain was forecast for remote Gansu province, where the swollen Bailong River was expected to once again overflow its banks, causing new trauma for survivors of the punishing deluge that first struck Aug. 7. Reports of the continued death and devastation have hit China hard, provoking an outpouring of sympathy for the stricken.