Beijing  - China's Ministry of Public Security has launched a three-month campaign to eliminate "unnatural deaths" in prisons following several alleged beatings to death by guards, one of which prison staff claimed was caused by the prisoner's own nightmare, state media said on Thursday.

The ministry posted a notice on its website ordering all prisons and detention centres to learn from the case of Li Qiaoming, a man who was beaten to death in February by other prisoners at a detention centre in the south-western province of Yunnan.

Wellington  - The United Chinese Association of New Zealand, an umbrella group representing 28 organizations, wants the government to refuse the Dalai Lama a visa for a proposed visit in December, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Prime Minister John Key has already said he would meet the 73- year-old Tibetan spiritual leader when he visits Auckland, calling him a "significant visitor," the New Zealand Herald reported.

London  - US President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao moved Wednesday to lay aside a recent round of tensions between Washington and Beijing by committing themselves to working together to combat the global recession.

The relationship between China and the United States said Obama following his meeting with Hu "is not only important for the citizens of both our countries, but will help to set the stage for how the world deals with a whole host of challenges in the years to come."

London  - US President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao moved Wednesday to lay aside a recent round of tensions between Washington and Beijing by committing themselves to working together to combat the global recession.

"The two sides agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive US-China relationship for the 21st century and to maintain and strengthen exchanges at all levels," Obama and Hu said in a joint statement following talks in London.

Beijing - A former police chief in China's south-western Yunnan province has been jailed for 18 years for illegally selling explosives and accepting bribes, local media reported Wednesday.

Kang Tianxiang, 43, a former public security bureau director of Yunnan's Yiliang County, was originally handed a life sentence by the province's intermediate court, according to the Metropolis Times newspaper based in the provincial capital, Kunming.

Beijing, Apr. 1 : A Hindustan Times report last week that suggested that the Indian army had on March 25 concluded a three-day military exercise codenamed Divine Matrix, based on the assumption a "nuclear-armed China will attack India before 2017", has left the government in Beijing surprised.