Beijing - The wife of jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia welcomed international support for the couple on Wednesday, as the European Parliament prepared to award its top human rights prize to him in absentia.

"It is not only for us, it is also for all Chinese human rights defenders," Zeng Jinyan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"It is important, it makes us feel warm and encouraged," she said of the international support, in a written interview via internet, which is normally the only way she can communicate with foreign journalists without police interference.

Zeng, 25, said Chinese police had talked to her about Wednesday's award of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu.

Beijing - Chinese naval ships will join UN-led efforts to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia, state media said on Wednesday.

"There will be a significant peacekeeping operation (for China)," the official China Daily quoted an unidentified military source as saying.

The foreign ministry quoted Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei as telling a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday in New York that China was "actively considering" a naval deployment in the region.

Beijing - Police in south-western China have arrested two men suspected of throwing paint-filled eggs at national, military and Communist Party flags, local media said on Wednesday.

More than 100 police questioned 873 people in the hunt for the paint-throwers after the attack at a martyrs' cemetery in the city of Chongqing on November 23, the Chongqing Times reported.

The two suspects confessed to police that they had thrown four paint-filled eggs at each of five flags, the newspaper said.

If convicted, Zhang Jingzhi and Wen Tingyu face up to three years in prison under Chinese administrative law, it said.

Beijing - Police in south-western China have arrested two men suspected of throwing paint-filled eggs at national, military and Communist Party flags, local media said on Wednesday.

More than 100 police questioned 873 people in the hunt for the paint-throwers after the attack at a martyrs' cemetery in the city of Chongqing on November 23, the Chongqing Times reported.

The two suspects confessed to police that they had thrown four paint-filled eggs at each of five flags, the newspaper said.

If convicted, Zhang Jingzhi and Wen Tingyu face up to three years in prison under Chinese administrative law, it said.

Beijing  - Audi is building a long-wheelbase version of the upper, mid-sized A4 model which is 60 mm longer than the standard version with more space for rear-seat passengers and is targeting the Chinese market.

Manufactured at the Audi factory in Changchun, China, the new Audi A4L will be launched only on the Chinese market and is to be delivered to dealerships from January 2009.

The chassis of the A4L was tailored to Chinese road conditions with special suspension comfort.

Beijing - Workers have culled nearly 400,000 birds after an outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza among poultry in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.

The presence of the H5N1 bird flu virus in dead birds was confirmed Monday in Jiangsu's Dongtai city and neighbouring Hai'an county, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

A total of 377,000 birds were culled in Dongtai and Hai'an, while workers had quarantined the infected areas and were disinfecting farms, the ministry said.