Beijing - A gas explosion kil

Beijing - China on Tuesday praised the "great contribution" to improving bilateral relations by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who resigned on Monday.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Fukuda's resignation was an "internal affair of Japan" but said ties had improved significantly between the two nations during his 11 months in office.

"Recently, through the joint efforts of two governments and people from all circles, China-Japan relations have witnessed good development, with deepening strategic cooperative relations," Jiang told reporters.

"The prime minister (Fukuda) has made a great contribution to it," she said. "We think highly of him."

Beijing - German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck on Monday said the purchase of Dresdner Bank by Commerzbank, in the face of competition from a Chinese bank, would be "good for Germany."

"This is good for Germany as a financial location and strengthens the financial centre," Steinbrueck said in a statement issued in Beijing, where he met top Chinese officials on Monday.

Deputy Finance Minister Joerg Asmussen said his government had used "no political influence" over the sale by Germany's Allianz of Dresdner Bank for 9.8 billion euros

Beijing - Shares on China's main stock market lost more than 3 per cent of their value Monday, following similar falls in other Asian markets.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in local and foreign currency, lost 72.23 points to end the day at 2,325.14, down 3.01 per cent.

Beijing - The casualty toll has risen to at least 33 dead and 506 injured after an earthquake on the borders of China's south-western provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, the government said Monday.

Most of the casualties were in Sichuan's worst-hit county of Huili, where 22 people were reported dead after Saturday's 6.1-magnitude quake, the State Seismological Bureau said on its website.

Beijing - The death toll rose to at least 25 and more than 400 injured after an earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale in south-western China, state media said on Sunday.

At least 17 people died, three were missing and 253 injured in the worst-hit county of Huili in Sichuan province, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Three others were reported dead in Sichuan's Panzhihua city and at least five died in the neighbouring province of Yunnan, the agency said.