Beijing - Paramilitary police on Friday sealed off a monastery in China's western province of Qinghai after more than 100 Tibetan monks staged a protest outside local government offices, US-based Radio Free Asia reported.

The Buddhist monks from Lutsang monastery marched to the offices in Guinan county (Mangra in Tibetan), issued a demand for greater government understanding and held a 30-minute candlelit vigil, local residents and a former monk told the broadcaster.

Beijing  - A group of victims' relatives on Friday urged the government to investigate the deaths of hundreds of people during China's 1989 military crackdown on democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

The Tiananmen Mothers group wrote an open letter renewing its demand for an official investigation into the military action on June 3-4, 1989, and a public announcement of the death toll and the names of the dead.

Beijing - China's stock

Beijing - A China-EU summit, which had been cancelled by Beijing following a row over Tibet in December, will be held in Prague in May, officials said Thursday.

Beijing had scotched the summit after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who then held the rotating EU presidency, and the Dalai Lama.

The current Czech EU presidency suggested the meeting to be held in Prague in mid-May, officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Beijing - Chinese naval vessels have rescued an Italian ship bearing the Liberian flag from pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia, state media said on Thursday.

The government's official Xinhua news agency gave no details of the operation or sources for its brief report.

A Chinese naval fleet of two destroyers and a supply ship joined international anti-piracy patrols off Sudan early last month.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) naval fleet is carrying about 800 crew, including 70 special forces soldiers, and is equipped with missiles, cannons and light weapons, the agency said earlier.

Beijing - China on Thursday rejected as "interference" a US State Department report that said human rights worsened in China in 2008.

"The United States should examine its own human rights issues, stop calling itself a human rights guardian and (stop) interfering in other countries' domestic affairs by issuing human rights reports," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.

Ma said China "firmly opposes any country's interference in its internal affairs on the pretext of human rights."