Beijing - A woman gave birth and abandoned a baby girl in the restroom of the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, in Beijing during the track and field events of the Paralympic Games,

Beijing - Several hundred people could be missing after mud and rock buried a market and other buildings in northern China's Shanxi province, killing at least 34 people, the government and state media said on Tuesday.

Initial state media reports said only that a warehouse at an iron mine was destroyed by the mud and rock flow early Monday, but the official Xinhua news agency on Tuesday said a market, an office block and several homes were also engulfed.

Beijing - At least 26 people died on Monday after a landslide caused by heavy rain destroyed a mine warehouse in a mountainous area of northern China's Shanxi province, state media said.

Several others were trapped under rubble and rescue workers had not established the exact number of people missing at the Tashan mine near Shanxi's Linfen city, the Xinhua news agency quoted local safety officials as saying

Torrential rain caused mud and rock to flow down a hillside and engulf the building early Monday morning, the agency said.

Beijing - US-based soft-drink giant Coca-Cola's offer to buy the leading Chinese fruit juice firm faces an anti-monopoly review, state media said on Monday.

China Central Television (CCTV) quoted Commerce Ministry spokesman Yao Shenhong as saying officials were still awaiting the formal application by Coca-Cola following its announcement last week that it had offered 2.4 billion dollars to buy China's Huiyuan Juice Group.

Beijing - China's two stock markets fell sharply Monday despite new rules designed to boost the markets and a global rebound sparked by the US government's bailout of two troubled mortgage giants.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in foreign and local currencies, lost 59.03 points, or 2.68 per cent, to end the day at a 21-month low of
2,143.42.

State media said concerns over slower economic growth and continuing slumps in petrochemical and property shares prompted Monday's fall in Shanghai and the smaller Shenzhen Compenent Index, which also lost about 3 per cent.

Beijing - China is preparing to launch its Shenzhou VII spacecraft on a mission this month to include the first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut, state media reported Sunday.

"All the major systems involved in the launching are now in the final preparation," the official Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman for the space programme as saying.

"The main tests for the spacecraft, the Long March-2F rocket, suits for the spacewalk and a satellite accompanying the flight have also been finished," the unidentified spokesman said.