Shanghai- Jo-Wilfried Tsonga claimed his third revenge win in two months over Novak Djokovic as he produced a 1-6, 7-5, 6-1 Gold group comeback to spoil the Serb's hopes for a perfect group record on Thursday at the Masters Cup.

The 23-year-old Tsonga is out of consideration for a semi-final spot, but earned a moral victory over the man who beat him in the Australian Open final in January. Djokovic ended with a 2-1 mark.

Tsonga has now proved his point over the world number three in the Bangkok final and third round at Paris Bercy in addition to the year-end spectacular.

Beijing - A Chinese legal activist on Thursday said he had been freed from police custody after being held for nearly two weeks to prevent him from advising candidates and voters in local elections.

Yao Lifa said police in the central province of Hubei released him on Wednesday night because his wife had become seriously ill during his what he called his "illegal detention".

Hanoi- A Chinese Navy warship will visit Vietnam next week, only the second such visit since Vietnam and China normalized relation in 1991, Vietnam's government spokesman confirmed Thursday.

The Chinese Navy training vessel Zheng He, which carries more than 400 military personnel, will dock at the port of Danang from November 18-22.

The "friendly visit" of the Chinese warship to Vietnam, government

Beijing - Vast "brown clouds" of pollution are making Asian cities darker, melting Himalayan glaciers and intensifying regional monsoons, a UN report said on Thursday.

A team of scientists highlighted the three effects after studying a "more than 3-kilometre-thick layer of soot and other manmade particles that stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the western Pacific Ocean," the United Nations Environment Programme said.

New Delhi, Nov 13 : Archaeologists have unearthed more than 1,100 oracle bone characters in the Shaanxi province of China, shedding new light on the number of such inscriptions in existence.

The find was made at a cluster of tombs in Qishan county that date back to the Western Zhou Dynasty.

According to Lei Xingshan, head of the dig team, “Prior to our discovery at the Temple of Duke Zhou, less than 1,100 Chinese characters written on pieces of bone and tortoiseshell had ever been found.”

Beijing - Shares on China's two stock markets jumped about 4 per cent Thursday, spurred by government economic measures and bucking the downward trend of other Asian markets.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in foreign and local currencies, gained 3.68 per cent to end the day at 1,927.61, up 68.5 points.