Beijing - A typhoon warning was sounded by officials for China's eastern coast, leading to the evacuation of around 170,000 people on Sunday.

According to Chinese media, typhoon Sinlaku which recently devastated Taiwan was threatened to hit China's eastern Fujian and Zhejiang provinces with strong winds and torrential rains.

In Fujian more than 30,000 fishermen were called into port, and all schools have been ordered closed for the next two days.

Flood warnings were issued for Zhejiang where waves of up to six metres were expected.

Beijing, Sept 13 : Unlawful dairy farmers supplying defective fresh milk are to blame for the contamination of the milk powder from Sanlu Group that has caused the death of one Chinese baby and kidney stones in about 140 others.

According to the China Daily, an announcement from the government of Shijiazhuang, where Sanlu is based, said an initial investigation had shown some milk providers had added an industrial contaminant, melamine, to diluted milk to boost their profits.

Beijing - The death toll in mudslide that buried a market and several buildings in the northern Chinese province Shanxi rose to 178, the state-run Xinhua news agency Saturday quoted officials as saying.

Five days after the mudslide, rescue efforts by thousands of volunteers continued but hopes of finding survivors were fading, as exact casualty numbers remained unclear. 

Officials said the mud would be cleared off the ground by Sunday, but rescuers encountered difficulties clearing the sludge from two ravines.

Beijing - Chinese art has been trendy in the west for a while, but now "a real hype" has developed, says Lorenzo Rudolf, creator and director of Shanghai's ShContemporary, Asia's largest art fair.

The Swiss art manager is riding on the crest of the wave, having elevated ShContemporary to its prominent position in only its second instalment, with 150 galleries from 25 countries participating.

Lorenzo believes Asia's art booms stems from the rapid economic development, which also brought a "certain liberalization."

The global art business, however, remains heavily, too heavily in his view, focused on the United States and Europe, where it enjoys a privileged existence.

Beijing  - The devastating 8.0-magnitude earthquake in China's Wenchuan county has increased the risk of major quakes along nearby geological fault lines, a group of international experts said in a report seen on Thursday.

Using computer modelling, the geophysicists found that "geological stress has significantly increased on three major fault systems in the region," said the report in Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union.

Beijing - A place for its technology on China's next manned space mission, Shenzhou VII, symbolizes the ascendancy of the Huaqi electronics group from its origins as a "briefcase company" to the owner one of the country's top digital brands.

But the Beijing-based firm is also focussed on more important terrestrial frontiers for its Aigo brand of high-technology consumer products.

Company president Feng Jun said he started Huaqi in 1993 with just 200 yuan (29 dollars) as the electronics boom was getting under way in Beijing's Zhongguancun district, proudly dubbed "China's Silicon Valley" by some of its founders.