China on Friday hit out at the Philippines' attempt to seek an international verdict on a territorial dispute over islands in the South China Sea, repeating that it would never give up its claims.

China on Friday hit out at the Philippines' attempt to seek an international verdict on a territorial dispute over islands in the South China Sea, repeating that it would never give up its claims.

Chinese researchers reporting in The Lancet on Thursday confirmed poultry as a source of H7N9 flu among humans but said they found no evidence of person-to-person transmission.

Several governments in Asia have ordered tougher screening of air travelers from China in an effort to contain a possible spread of a new strain of bird flu that has killed 23 people in the mainland and infected one visitor from Taiwan.

China welcomed French President Francois Hollande Thursday with a deal potentially worth billions for 60 Airbus planes as he became the first Western leader to pay court to Beijing's new supremo.

A 78-year-old man has been rescued five days after an earthquake hit southwestern China, killing 196 and making thousands homeless, state media reported Thursday.

Chinese police were Thursday investigating eight suspects arrested in the ethnically divided Xinjiang region after clashes left 21 dead, with authorities reportedly accusing “terrorists” of ambushing police.

The brother of a Chinese activist whose escape from house arrest last year angered authorities said Thursday that harassment of his family has intensified with his wife facing possible indictment and his home being pelted with dead chickens, bricks and stones.

A new bird flu strain that has killed 22 people in China is “one of the most lethal” of its kind and transmits more easily to humans than another strain that has killed hundreds since 2003, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said on Wednesday.

A confrontation involving axes, knives, at least one gun and ending with the burning down of a house left 21 people dead in China's troubled far-west region of Xinjiang, a government spokeswoman said on Wednesday, calling it a “terrorist attack.”