Beijing  - Airport police in the south-western Chinese city of Chengdu overpowered a man who was armed with a starting pistol and had taken a woman hostage near a security counter, state media said on Friday.

The police and security officers seized the 23-year-old man after he fired two shots into the air and grabbed the woman at Chengdu's Shuangliu International Airport on Thursday morning, the official Xinhua news agency quoted police as saying.

The police quickly overpowered the man and freed the woman uninjured, the agency said.

Beijing - Chinese lawyers said Wednesday that they plan to challenge the auction in France of two bronze animal heads that were allegedly stolen from Beijing's former Summer Palace by British and French troops 150 years ago.

The lawyers were trying to get the Chinese bronze heads withdrawn from a huge Yves Saint Laurent art collection scheduled to be auctioned by Christie's in Paris next week.

"If they still want to hold an auction, we will go to court," Xie Tongxiang, one of the leaders of a group of Chinese lawyers planning to travel to Paris, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Beijing  - Nearly 1,500 new cars drive out every day onto the already-clogged streets of Beijing, which has been ranked among the world's most polluted cities.

"The growing number of automobiles is creating serious traffic pressure and safety risks in the city," Song Jianguo, head of the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

The Chinese capital registered 65,970 new cars in the first 45 days of the year, creating an average daily increase of 1,466 vehicles, the bureau said.

The new registrations brought the total number of Beijing's cars to 3.56 million.

Beijing - Police in south-western China detained 15 Tibetans on Monday after they staged a protest in support of the exiled Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence, a Tibetan exile group reported.

The police detained the Tibetans after they marched through the centre of the town of Litang, Sichuan province, shouting slogans including "Long live the Dalai Lama" and "Independence for Tibet," the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) said.

Beijing - China's main stock market gained nearly 3 per cent on Monday despite new economic data showing a big fall in foreign direct investment in January.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in local and foreign currencies, gained 68.6 points, or 2.96 per cent, to end the day at 2,389.39.

The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index also gained 1.87 per cent, closing at 763.30.

The Shanghai Daily newspaper said the rise was led by strong performances by brokerages.

Beijing - China's foreign direct investment fell by 33 per cent year-on-year in January due to the global financial crisis, the commerce ministry said on Monday.

The size of the fourth consecutive monthly drop in foreign direct investment was also influenced by last month's lunar new holiday and a particularly high total in January
2008, ministry spokesman Yao Jian told reporters.

China officially used foreign investment valued at 7.54 billion dollars last month, Yao said.