A group of around 130 Hong Kong protesters were forcefully removed from the city's government headquarters early on Thursday following a major protest march that drew an estimated 76,000 thousand people.

U.S. President Barack Obama will meet China's President Hu Jintao on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Italy next week, a senior White House official said on Wednesday.

The move to open the Taiwanese market to Chinese investments will not pose a threat to the national security, as speculated by some people because of the strict restrictions attached to the liberalization policy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) stressed.

Nearly 1.6 million passengers have been served over the past year since direct cross-Taiwan Strait charter flights were launched July 4, 2008, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) reported yesterday.

China's central bank allowed companies to undertake settlement of cross-border trade in the yuan and promised tax breaks, seeking to reduce the reliance of importers and exporters on the U.S. dollar.

China, the largest holder of foreign currency reserves, renewed its call for a stable dollar and damped speculation the nation is seeking talks on a new international currency at next week's Group of Eight meeting.

Several PC makers were including controversial Internet-filtering software with computers shipped in China on Thursday despite a government decision to postpone its plan to make such a step mandatory.

China will encourage foreign-funded firms to make share offerings in China, a senior Ministry of Commerce official said on Thursday during a wide-ranging briefing where he also flagged that annual declines in exports and imports began to improve in June.

Alongside the plummeting orders , China's shipbuilding industry is suffering another headache: shortage of funds.

The fuel price hike would certainly pinch the pockets of consumers, but may not leave a lasting impact on the nation's economic recovery, according to analysts and experts.