China urges U.S. politicians to view China's development in an objective and rational way, stop making groundless accusation against China and contribute more to China-U.S. mutual trust and cooperation.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei made the remarks in a statement issued Saturday morning in response to the U.S. Republic Party's recently-released China policy and U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's remarks concerning China in his nomination speech. 

Hong Lei said all American politicians, regardless of political party, should view China's development in an objective and rational way, correctly understand China-U.S. relations, stop making groundless accusation against China and intervening in China's internal affairs, and do more contribution to promoting China-U.S. mutual trust and cooperation in a responsible way.

He stressed that it is the common cause of China and the United States to push forward the mutually beneficial cooperative partnership with mutual respect.

 

China denies Greenpeace GM rice test claims 

Government officials in central China's Hunan Province have denied claims that children in the area were being used as guinea pigs in U.S.-backed research on the effects of consuming genetically-modified (GM) rice.

The response was prompted by a Greenpeace article saying that the environmental protection group had discovered a study backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture involving feeding genetically modified Golden Rice to a group of 24 children, aged between six and eight, in Hunan. 

A spokesman for Hengyang City, where the study was allegedly conducted, said the government has formed an investigation team to probe the claim, but initial findings indicated that there had been no such research project.

 

Car bomb kills 15 civilians in Damascus' suburb

15 people have been killed in a booby-trapped car explosion at a restive suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Reports say the car went off near Muaz Bin Jabal mosque in the Sbaineh suburb Saturday. 

The Sbaineh area is dominated by Palestinian refugees.

 

2 U.S. soldiers killed by militants in Afghanistan

The U.S. Forces have confirmed Anti-government militants attack claimed the lives of two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Afghan interior ministry says Afghan police and army, backed by the NATO-led coalition forces, have carried out 11 military operations in several provinces, killing 87 armed Taliban insurgents within the past 24 hours.

 

No peace treaty deal with Japan at APEC summit: Russian FM

Russia says it will not settle the peace treaty issue with Japan during the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. 

During a meeting with students from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the territorial disputes and the relevant problem of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan would not be settled within the APEC framework. 

Russia and Japan have long been at odds over the sovereignty of four disputed Pacific islands which are called Northern Territories in Japan and Southern Kuril islands in Russia.

 

Chinese premier says property controls still in "critical period" 

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has reiterated the country still needs to resolutely curb speculative property investment as controls on the real estate sector are still in a "critical period."

During an inspection tour of affordable housing projects in the city of Tianjin in north China, Wen Jiabao said increasing the effective supplies of homes to the market will be more important to consolidate the previous achievements in stabilizing housing prices. 

He said that smooth progress in the affordable housing projects will provide important support in stabilizing property prices and consolidating the government's efforts to tame overly high home prices.

 

Chinese man seized for sending threatening message to ground flight 

Chinese police have seized a suspect who allegedly sent a threatening message which caused a domestic flight to divert on Thursday.

The 29-year-old man, Xiong Yi, was caught Saturday afternoon in a hotel in Dongguan city in southern province of Guangdong, according to the police of central China's Hubei Province, where Xiong resides. 

Xiong Yi confessed that he made an anonymous phone call to an airport in Shenzhen, Guangdong Thursday, claiming that explosives had been planted on Shenzhen Airlines Flight ZH9706, which was in mid-air for Shenzhen from Xiangyang, Hubei. 

The flight made an emergency landing at an airport in Hubei's capital Wuhan out of concerns for passenger safety. Police conducted a thorough inspection but found no dangerous items on the aircraft or in the passengers' belongings.

 

Chinese provinces halt overnight buses after accident 

Several Chinese provincial regions have banned the non-stop overnight operation of long-distance buses after a truck-bus collision killed 36 people last week.

The ban went into effect in Fujian Province on Saturday. Passenger buses with seven or more seats were ordered off the road from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., according to orders issued by the provincial public security department. Only shuttles for airports, railway stations and ports are exempted.