Beijing - A Chinese court has sentenced to death two Taiwanese drug dealers convicted of trafficking heroin from Myanmar, state media said on Monday.

Chien Chih-Cheng and Chen Ming-Hsiung were among eight Taiwanese citizens sentenced last week in the south-eastern province of Fujian for their part in trafficking more than 12 kilograms of heroin, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Chien and Chen led a gang that bought 39 packets of heroin from Myanmar in early September and sold four of them for 400,000 yuan (60,000 dollars) in the southern city of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, the agency quoted police as saying.

New Delhi, Nov 24 : Archaeologists have determined that a 1,000-year-old miniature pagoda, which was recovered from an iron case found at a former temple site in China, could hold the top part of Buddha’s skull.

The pagoda was taken out of an iron box found in a secret underground chamber in the Changgan Temple ruins in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province.

It is believed to be one of the 84,000 “pagodas of King Asoka (273 BC - 236 BC) that contain Buddha’s sarira, or his remains found in the cremation ash.

Beijing - Five people died on Sunday after a dispute at a video-game centre in south-western China escalated into a pitched battle involving at least 20 people, some armed with knives and batons, state media said on Monday.

Several youths got into an argument with the manager of the Milky Way Express games centre in the Nanping district of Chongqing city late Sunday evening, the official Xinhua news agency quoted city police as saying.

Taipei - China's decision to allow Taiwan's former vice president Lien Chan to attend the APEC summit in Peru and to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao marked a major milestone in cross-strait relations, according to Taiwan media.

China's move can be interpreted as Beijing's response to President Ma Ying-jeou's call for a "diplomatic truce" with China, they said.

A China Post editorial characterized Beijing's embrace of Lien as a positive sign of across-strait detente.

Beijing - Chinese authorities have detained a consumer electronics' tycoon reputed to be the country's wealthiest person over alleged share price manipulation, state media said Monday.

Stock market investigators detained Huang Guangyu, the head of Gome Electrical Appliances, for questioning last week, Caijing magazine and other media reported.

The investigations relate to manipulation of share prices last year for a company run by Huang's elder brother, Huang Junqin, the magazine quoted unidentified sources as saying.