Beijing  - The wife and children of leading Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng have escaped from close police surveillance and travelled via Thailand to the United States, US-funded Radio Free Asia reported Friday.

Gao's wife, Geng He; their 15-year-old daughter; and 5-year-old son walked into Thailand after fleeing from virtual house arrest in Beijing and crossing a border in southern China, the broadcaster quoted Geng as saying.

"I left China because my family had been under tight surveillance for a long time," she said.

"We experienced in our careers and daily life great hardship and difficulty," Geng added.

Hanoi  - Vietnam has protested new moves by China and the Philippines asserting sovereignty over the disputed Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, local press reported Friday.

China announced recently it would allow a tourist agency to offer trips to an island in the Spratly archipelago known in Vietnamese as Phu Lam.

"This act seriously infringes upon Vietnam's territorial sovereignty and is harmful to bilateral negotiations to seek a fundamental and durable solution to the sea issues between the two parties," the Vietnam News Agency quoted government spokesman Le Dung as saying Thursday.

Beijing  - How large is China's economic stimulus package?

This question not only occupied the delegates of the National People's Congress, whose annual session ended Friday in Beijing, but also representatives of foreign companies who want to know what is going to be in the picture for China's economy.

In November, the programme designed to stimulate the economy was announced in the amount of 4 trillion yuan (586 billion dollars).

But concrete details were still lacking as congress delegates demanded "more transparency."

Hong Kong - Wild monkeys in Hong Kong are being hunted and killed in a trade that might be supplying restaurants in China specializing in exotic cuisine, a news report said Friday.

The discovery of the remains of a butchered monkey found in a country park in the city of 9 million has set off a police hunt for poachers hunting the primates, the Hong Kong Standard said.

Beijing - Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday defended China's policies in Tibetan areas, saying they had achieved economic development and led to "peace and stability."

"The situation in Tibet is on the whole peaceful and stable," Wen told reporters in the first remarks by a top Chinese leader since Tuesday's 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

The government's policies and legislation had "provided for the freedom and rights of the people of Tibet, particularly their freedom of religion," he said.

Beijing  - China's nominal parliament on Friday endorsed policies designed to bolster the economy against the global recession and approved an annual budget that included another large hike in military spending.

Reports on the budget and economic performance were approved by a large majority of the nearly 3,000 members of the National People's Congress (NPC), who took part in rapid electronic voting at the end of the parliament's nine-day annual session.