Beijing - Beijing on Tuesday rejected Japanese protests against two Chinese ships entering the waters around a group of disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The Diaoyu Islands have been part of China since "ancient times" Liu Jinachao, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

"The usual cruising of the Chinese ships within Chinese seas is irreproachable," he said.

The islands, a source of bilateral tension for many years, are called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.

Japan has held the islands since China9s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, but they are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Tokyo  - Japanese stocks rose Tuesday despite a revised government estimate outlining an annualized third-quarter gross domestic product decline of 1.8 per cent.

Driven up by gains on Wall Street and a rally in commodities the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average was up 40.38 points, or 0.48 per cent, to 8,369.43 by mid-trading.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues rose 5.8 points, or 0.71 per cent to 817.88.

On currency markets at 9 am (0000 GMT), the dollar was quoted at 93.00-03 yen, compared to Monday's 5 pm quote of 93.01-03 yen.

Los Angeles  - "Black Monday." That's how the trade magazine Editor & Publisher chose to headline its story about the demise of the Tribune Co - one of the most august and profitable newspaper companies in the United States.

The owner of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and a host of other papers and TV properties, the company filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, unable to meet payments on a growing mountain of debt.

The company's situation was unusual. Tribune Co was saddled with debt when it was bought out by billionaire investor Sam Zell last year in a highly leveraged deal.

Tokyo  - Japanese gross domestic product declined in the third quarter by an annualized 1.8 per cent, according to a revised government estimate, contracting more sharply than in an earlier, initial estimate.

For the July-September period, the Japanese government had initially estimated a contract at an annualized rate of 0.4 per cent.

The sharper contraction only confirms a second quarter of shrinking GDP, clarifying that Japan's economy has plummeted into the textbook definition of recession.

Washington/Los Angeles  - A US F/A-18 fighter jet crashed Monday into a neighbourhood in San Diego, California, killing at least three people and damaging two homes in the densely populated area, authorities said.

The pilot of the Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet was trying to land at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar after a training mission, when the jet went down about 3 kilometres north-west of the airfield, Marine Corps Corporal Francis Goch said.

Berlin  - Graphic scenes of young people in drunken incidents form the backbone of a campaign launched in Germany to raise awareness of the negative consequences of heavy drinking.

They include a young man covered in vomit after a night out, a club- goer who has soiled his trousers after excessive alcohol consumption and a teenage football fan beaten up in a drunken brawl.

The images decorate 1.5 million beermats and are also available for viewing as video spots on websites frequented by young people.

The campaign, bearing the slogan: Don't drink too much - Stay Gold, was initiated by police after statistics showed an alarming rise in binge drinking.