Johannesburg  - South Africa's frontrunner for president, Jacob Zuma, defended the government's refusal to deny the Dalai Lama a visa, even as the organizers of the 2010 football World Cup expressed disappointment at the subsequent canning of a 2010-related peace conference.

Zuma is the president of the ruling African National Congress party. He is poised to replace President Kgalema Motlanthe as leader after general elections on April 22 that the ANC is favoured to win.

According to Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009 released today, China has defeated India on the worldwide IT (information technology) radar, by gaining the 46th position in what is known as the Network Readiness Index (NRI).

At the same time India fell to the 54th grade from the 50th position during the last year, China jumped 11 points to come forward as a more innovative nation in promoting its global IT interests.

Soumitra Dutta, management academic at INSEAD, France, made this announcement.

San Francisco  - The Electronic Freedom Foundation on Thursday voiced alarm at the blanket censorship apparently placed on YouTube earlier in the week by Chinese authorities.

"Such absolute blocks are unusual," said Danny O'Brien, International Outreach Coordinator with the internet freedom group. "The purpose is to make very clear that it's a deliberate gesture."

Access in China to the Google-owned video website has been blocked since Monday.

New York  - The Beijing Vantone Real Estate Company planned to sign Thursday a lease for five floors in the new World Trade Center's Freedom Tower, making it the building's first corporate tenant, news reports said.

The US government and New York City's agencies have all agreed to lease space in the 592-meter tower, which is being built on the same land where the original twin towers were destroyed by terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Beijing - Criticism from China rose Thursday against US monetary policy with economists saying Washington must do more to restore confidence in the dollar.

The United States should "take real responsibility to clear up the mess it has created," Erh-Cheng Hwa, chief economist at the Bank of Communications and a former economist with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), told the official China Daily newspaper.

Beijing, Mar. 26 : Even as Indian capital New Delhi continues to wrestle with the myriad obstacles coming in the way of it hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games between October 3 and 14, China has announced plans for the global broadcast of XVI Asian Games to be held in the same year.

Though it has held several Games-related review meetings, New Delhi is yet to decide on who is going to handle the coverage of the event.