Washington, Oct 5 : Beijing has warned that the US’ decision to sell weapons to Taiwan worth more than six billion dollars would hamper US-China relations. Following the US announcement on Friday in this regard, officials in Beijing issuing denunciations and warnings that the weapons deal could “worsen bilateral relations”.

Taipei - A Chinese dissident attempting to claim asylum in Taiwan since last year asked to be repatriated on Saturday, following an unsuccessful bid for refugee status.

Cai Lujun, 40, made the request in a letter emailed to the Taiwan government. Taiwan officials have said that they would respect Cai's wish.

Cai, a former businessman in Hebei Province in China, was a jailed for three years in 2003 for criticizing the Chinese government on the internet.

On July 26, 2007, he fled to Taiwan on a fishing boat to seek asylum.

Taipei - Twenty-nine young survivors of the deadly earthquake in China's Sichuan Province were in Taiwan for a holiday to help them recover from the trauma of the May 12 quake which killed 70,000 people, reports said Saturday.

The children, aged between seven years and their teens, were guests of the Chinatrust Charity Foundation, a Taiwanese charity.

Having visited Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and the Taipei Zoo, the group on Saturday arrived in Nantou County in central Taiwan, to visit the site of the September 21, 1999 earthquake which killed 2,321 people and injuring 8,000.

Beijing - Skype, the online text message and voice service, acknowledged Friday that its Chinese partner had been archiving politically sensitive text messages.

Skype president Josh Silverman said the company was unaware that the internet chat of users in China, especially political discussions, was being stored on computer servers by Chinese mobile firm TOM Online, a unit of Hong Kong-based TOM Group Ltd.

In a statement, Silverman said the US company owned by auction giant eBay was "very concerned" about the monitoring and storage as well as a security breach that was discovered by Canadian researchers.

Recently, it was announced by Netgear Inc., a networking-equipment maker, that CP Secure Inc., a provider of security solutions would be taken over by them though a deal of $17.5 million. CP Secure Inc, that provides security, basically protects against Internet-originated web and email based malware threat. 

To acquire CP Secure’s assets, Netgear, a California based company will pay $14 mn in cash and if in case CP Secure hits unspecified objectives before the closure of the acquisition, it will be paid additional $3.5 mn. 

Brussels - The European Union's executive decided on Thursday to launch a formal review of current anti-dumping measures against Chinese and Vietnamese leather shoes, effectively keeping those measures in place despite opposition from EU member states.

"The European Commission today decided to launch an expiry review into the (anti-dumping) measures. The practical implication means the measures will continue for the duration of that review," Peter Power, spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said.

"The review could last anything up to 12-15 months, but we will try and expedite this," he said.