Beijing  - Tibetans in China have staged several small protests in support of the exiled Dalai Lama in the last few days, including at least one on Saturday's anniversary of rioting last year, Tibetan exile groups reported on Sunday.

Police detained three young Tibetan men in Kardze (Ganzi) prefecture, in China's south-western province of Sichuan, after they shouted slogans including "long live the Dalai Lama" and "independence for Tibet" on Saturday, the Tibetan website Phayul. com quoted the Voice of Tibet radio station as saying.

Beijing  - China's state-appointed Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Panchen Lama, on Sunday urged Tibetans to "cherish the prosperity" and "bright future" offered by the ruling Communist Party.

"People living in Tibet should cherish their prosperity and happy lives today," the government's official Xinhua news agency quoted the Panchen Lama, 19-year-old Gyaincain Norbu, as saying.

While touring a government exhibition in Beijing to mark the "50th Anniversary of Democratic Reforms in Tibet," he promised to guide Tibetan Buddhists to "adapt to the country's socialist society."

Beijing - China's largest fisheries ship was expected to arrive at disputed islands in the South China Sea on Sunday to bolster the country's claims over the area, state media reported.

The Fishery Administration Ship No 311 left China's southern island of Hainan on Saturday and was scheduled to reach the Paracel islands, known in China as the Xisha, on Sunday, the Beijing News said.

The largest and fastest ship in China's fishery administration fleet was dispatched to patrol the country's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, the newspaper said.

New Delhi, Mar 14 : The National People''s Congress (NPC), China''s top legislature, has expressed strong indignation and opposition to a European Parliament resolution on Tibet.

"We are strongly indignant with and opposed to the act that intervenes in China's internal affairs, damages China-Europe relations and hurts the Chinese people's feelings," the NPC Foreign Affairs Committee said in a statement.

Beijing - Troops in full battle dress patrolled Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, on Saturday as the anniversary of last year's anti-Chinese protests and rioting in the city was marked largely with silence amid the heavy security.

The semi-official China News Service showed a photograph of two schoolchildren walking past a dozen soldiers in combat gear in the deserted Barkhor market street in the centre of Lhasa.

"Anniversary of the 'March 14' sacrifice: behind every statistic is grief and terror," said the agency's headline above a story that reflected the government's focus on the 18 Chinese civilian deaths in last year's rioting.

Hong Kong  - A love-struck German student has been deported from Lhasa after dodging a ban on foreigners to visit his Tibetan girlfriend, a news report said Saturday.

Tillman Blimke, 22, who is studying in Beijing, slipped into Tibet a month ago with the help of friends to be reunited with a girlfriend in Shannan south of Lhasa whom he fell for on a previous visit, the South China Morning Post reported.

Despite a blanket ban on foreigners entering Tibet ahead of the 50th anniversary last week of the Dalai Lama's flight, and Saturday's first anniversary of the 2008 riots, Blimke managed to travel extensively across Tibet, the newspaper said.