Beijing - A mudslide in northern China which engulfed several buildings and a market after a dam at an illegally operated mine burst has killed up to 270 people, the official Xinhua news agency said Thursday.

Ten days after the disaster, 260 bodies have been recovered, while 10 people were still missing, rescuers were quoted as saying.

Investigations in the accident which happened at Tashan mine near the town of Linfen in Shanxi province focus on how the mine operators were able to build the unlicensed waste reservoir and operate for years without permits.

Islamabad, Sept 17: The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the public relations wing of the Pakistan army, has said that giving orders to its troops to hit back at US drones was not a recent change in its policy of defending its territory against foreign incursions.

ISPR chief Maj Gen Athar Abbas said that to defend the country and its people against any foreign aggression was the “stated policy” of the Pakistan Army.

“There has been no recent change in the army’s policy after cross-border incursions by US-led forces. We reserve the right to defend our people in case of any offensive or cross-border incursion and we reserve the right to respond,” the Daily Times quoted Abbas as saying.

Beijing, Sept. 17: A third child has died in China’s southeastern Zhejiang Province after consuming contaminated milk. The death toll till Tuesday was two, China's Ministry of Health said here on Wednesday.

Health Minister Chen Zhu told reporters on Wednesday morning that the first two deaths had occurred in northwest Gansu Province. They included a five-month-old boy who died on May 1 after his family refused further treatment and an eight-month-old girl whose family also refused an operation and removed her from hospital on July 22 on which day she died.

Both had suffered kidney failure.

Washington, Sept 16: In a “retaliatory action” after the Sept 3 on-the-ground raid by US forces killing 20 people at a suspected militant target near Angor Adda, Pakistan blocked supplies to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said an American media report.

Most of the dead in the said strike were women and children.

For almost nine years, the US has been using the 1200-mile route from Karachi to the Khyber Pass to supply its troops in Afghanistan, and in lieu Pakistan is paid one million dollars a day for these supplies, including oil, food, heavy equipment and medicines, the Dawn quoted the report as saying.

Manila - Developing Asia's economic growth is expected to slow down in the next two years due to high oil and food prices and an economic slump in industrial countries, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Tuesday.

The Manila-based ADB said developing Asian economies will revert to moderate growth of 7.5 per cent in 2008 and 7.2 per cent in 2009 after posting their fastest growth of 9.0 per cent in 2007.

New Delhi, Sept. 15 : Asian Centre for Human Rights urged the visiting Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda to protect the rights of the Tibetan refugees in Nepal and refrain from refoulement of any Tibetan refugee to China.

About 30 percent of the 20,000 Tibetan refugees living in four camps in Pokhara, Nepal who entered Nepal illegally or were never granted a refugee certificate face imprisonment and deportation in an attempt to satisfy China. Altogether 132 Tibetan activists have been arrested since 9 September 2008.