Xinhua

China's Yang Wenyi, 16, bettered the world record in the women's 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24.98 seconds at the Asian Swimming Championships in Canton, China, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The previous mark of 25.28 was set by Tamara Costache of Romania in 1986.

China raised its 1984 estimate of new coal reserves to 10.2 billion tons. The government said the revision brings its total estimate to more than 780 billion metric tons, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

China announced a ban Friday on dumping radioactive waste at sea and said it would phase out sea disposal of industrial waste. The ban takes effect today, the official Xinhua News Agency said. China previously allowed dumping of low-level radioactive waste at sea with government permission.

Two Sichuan farmers were sentenced to death and two others were given life imprisonment for selling panda skins, the official Xinhua News Agency said Friday. Only about 1,000 giant pandas survive in the wilds of Sichuan and neighboring Tibet.

BEIJING -- China's National Tourism Administration has issued an advisory on travel to Hong Kong after a video of mainland tourists being insulted and "forced to shop" by a Hong Kong tour guide sparked outrage on the Internet. A former British colony, Hong Kong attracts hordes of Chinese tourists, many of them on shopping trips for luxury or brand-name goods that are more expensive on the mainland. "An undated video clip currently circulating on the Internet shows a Hong Kong tour guide allegedly abusing a group of visitors from the Chinese mainland and forcing them to shop, triggering a backlash from the mainland public," the Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

Tears, wild hair and unhealthy songs are banned when China's version of "American Idol" goes on the air next month. "No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste," the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said Friday in a notice to the producers of "Happy Boys Voice," according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The talent show, to be broadcast beginning May 1, is a sequel to the hugely popular TV contest "Super Girls Voice" in 2005.

Chinese director Lou Ye has been banned from making movies in his home country for five years because his film was screened at Cannes in May without government approval, state media said. The main Xinhua News Agency said that Lou's movie, "Summer Palace," would be confiscated and income from it seized. The film is a sexually explicit love story set against China's pro-democracy protests of 1989, which led up to the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown.