No confirmed clues found to missing flight
Search forces have still failed to find any confirmed clues to the Malaysian flight MH370, now missing for 36 days.
An official with the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center says China's vessels have been searching in an area of about 25,000 square kilometers, which is in the western part of the search region designated by the Australian authorities.
In the eastern region of about 15,000 square kilometers, vessels from other countries, including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Malaysia, have been in search.
The center has mobilized 63 merchant ships for assistance in the search, covering about 167 thousand square kilometers in total.
China protests Japanese minister's visit to war shrine
China has protested against a Japanese Cabinet minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement this once again shows the mistaken attitude of the current Japanese Cabinet toward history.
China has lodged solemn representations and protests with the Japanese side.
Japanese Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Yoshitaka Shindo visited the Tokyo shrine that honors executed war criminals on Saturday.
Armed men seize two government buildings in eastern Ukraine
The regional police chief of Donesk has agreed to demands to resign by pro-Russian protesters who occupied his headquarters Saturday, hours after a dozen gunmen seized two buildings in another eastern Ukraine town.
Earlier in the day, about a dozen gunmen seized a state security building and a police station in Slavyansk, a town about 100 km north of Donetsk.
Ukrain says it has dispatched special forces to the scene, adding there is zero tolerance for armed terrorists.
Casualties and hostages remain unknown.
Powerful quake of 8.3 magnitude strikes off Kirakira, Solomon Islands
An earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale jolted 102 kilometers off Kirakira, Solomon Islands, Saturday night.
This powerful quake was followed by another earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale in the vicinity two seconds later.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) has issued a localised tsunami warning for the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea after the powerful earthquake.
Iran says "no replacement" for its new UN envoy pick
Iran says it does not have any replacement for its newly-proposed UN ambassador who has been denied entry visa by the United States.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry official says Iran will pursue the issue through the available legal mechanisms in the United Nations.
The United States has informed Iran that it would not grant a visa to its newly appointed UN ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, a member of the group responsible for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
21 killed in violent attacks across Iraq
Twenty-one people were killed and 45 others wounded in separate violent attacks across Iraq on Saturday.
The violence came just 18 days ahead of the landmark parliamentary elections on April 30, which is the first in the country since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in late 2011.
NW China city rids pollutants off contaminated tap water in two districts
Lanzhou city in northwest China's Gansu province cancelled emergency water supply to two districts Saturday night as the contaminated tap water was found safe there.
Crude oil leak from a petrochemical pipeline poisoned the water source for a local water plant and brought hazardous levels of benzene into the city's tap water on Friday morning, affecting 2.4 million people.
By 11 a.m. Saturday, the environmental monitoring department found no more benzene in four tests of samples taken from two downtown surveillance sites. The city government thus decided to stop emergency supply of free drinking water to the two districts.
Traces of benzene, however, were still found in water samples taken in Xigu district, and the government suggested people not to drink the tap water.
New railway under construction in Xinjiang
Construction of a new railway in far west China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which will eventually link the area with Kazakstan, has gotten underway.
The 308 km railway from Karamay to Tacheng will cost over 5 billion yuan (840 million U.S. dollars) and be completed at the end of 2016.
When it opens in 2017, the railway is expected to carry over 10 million tonnes of freight annually and, in the long run, annual throughput will top 15 million tonnes.
Shaolin Temple invites calligraphy lovers to copy scriptures
The Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, has invited 10,000 lovers of Chinese calligraphy around the world to copy Buddhist scriptures by hand.
A grand master of the Buddhist temple in Dengfeng, central China's Henan Province, says the activity will not only preserve classic Buddhist literature, but also help people cultivate themselves in line with Buddhism doctrines.
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