Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visits to India and Pakistan from Dec. 15 to Dec. 19 are fruitful and successful with rich achievements, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Sunday.

The BBC’s website is accessible once again in China after being blocked for several days. The blackout coincided with the award ceremony for this year’s Noble Peace Prize winner, the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

China says its economy expanded by 8.7% in 2009, exceeding even the government’s own initial expectations. The pace of change increased as the year went on, with growth in the final quarter of 2009 increasing by 10.7% from 2008.

A massive oil spill into the Yellow River in central China is threatening the drinking water of towns and cities. Last Wednesday 150,000 litres of diesel oil spilled out of a ruptured pipeline and into two tributaries of the Yellow River.

Schools have been closed in the Chinese capital Beijing, and flights cancelled out of Beijing and South Korea’s capital Seoul, due to heavy snow.

The Chinese military said Tuesday that it had begun training 40 officers from Iraq and Afghanistan to clear and defuse land mines. China has trained 300 mine specialists from 15 countries over the past decade, its Foreign Ministry said in a statement....

Chinese President Hu Jintao called for strengthened cooperation with the United States as the two countries marked the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties on New Year’s Day.Thousands of peace doves were released in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square...

A virus outbreak in an eastern Chinese city has killed 19 children and left hundreds ill, state media reported on Sunday nearly two months after the outbreak started. The intestinal virus called “enterovirus 71″ or EV71, one trigger of what...