BEIJING (AFP) - Beijing and Washington announced Friday an agreement giving US beef, natural gas and certain financial services access to China's massive market in a deal highlighting the warm ties nurtured by their presidents.The deal was unveiled a month after Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump launched a 100-day action plan on economic cooperation during their meeting at the US leader's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Trump's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin hailed the agreement with

 US President Donald Trump welcomed a record surge in the stock market on Thursday, a day after the Dow blasted through the 21,000 mark for the first time after his speech to Congress."Since November 8th, Election Day, the Stock Market hasposted $3.2 trillion in GAINS and consumer confidence is at a 15year high. Jobs!" the Republican president wrote on Twitter.In an address to Congress on Tuesday night, Trump said hewanted to boost the US economy with a "massive" tax relief andmake a $1 trillion

BEIJING (AFP) -- A Chinese court Monday sentenced a former top official to life in prison for corruption involving millions of dollars, the latest high-profile conviction in President Xi Jinping's crackdown on graft. Su Rong, 66, was a vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a discussion body that is part of the Communist Party-controlled government structure.He was found guilty of bribery, abuse of power and possessing "huge amounts" of assets whose origins he c

BEIJING (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of Chinese travelers were packing airports, train and bus stations Friday as they headed home for Lunar New Year celebrations.Officials expect that Chinese travelers will make almost 3 billion trips during the holiday travel rush that starts Friday and runs through Feb. 21. These trips include intercity flights, trains and local bus rides to villages for China's 1.4 billion people.Each year, it represents the world's largest seasonal migration of people as f

Pope Francis encouraged women attending a ceremony in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday to feel free to breastfeed their children in the church."The ceremony is a little long, someone's crying because he's hungry. That's the way it is," the pontiff said."You mothers, go ahead and breastfeed, without fear. Just like the Virgin Mary nursed Jesus," he told worshippers attending an annual ceremony commemorating the baptism of Jesus.The Argentine pope on Sunday baptised 28 children -- 15 boys and 13 girls

A high-ranking city official in China burst into a government meeting Wednesday and shot the mayor and city party secretary before killing himself, state media reported.Suspect Chen Zhongshu, 54, was secretary of the land bureau in Panzhihua, a city of 1.2 million in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the official Xinhua news agency reported.The attack occurred during a meeting of the municipal party committee and high-level city government cadres at the Panzhihua convention and exhibition ce

BEIJING (AFP) -- China's navy sent its sole aircraft carrier into the Pacific for the first time, state media reported -- a move likely to ratchet up regional tensions.The duration of the drill and the route of the flotilla were not known. But the Soviet-made carrier is based in the northeastern city of Dalian, suggesting the fleet would enter the Pacific through a disputed island chain between Taiwan and Japan. "A Chinese navy formation, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, headed towards t

BEIJING (AFP) - China said Thursday that the deployment of weapons in the South China Sea had "nothing to do with militarisation", calling the construction of defensive facilities "normal". The comments came after images released by the US-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) showed a series of hexagonal structures on each of seven islets China constructed on uninhabitable rocks and reefs.The structures appear to be large anti-aircraft guns and close-in weapons systems (CIWS) desig

Beijing issued its first clear warning Monday over Donald Trump's fiery rhetoric, as state media said the Asian giant could back "forces hostile to the US" if the president-elect follows through with threats to drop Washington's One China policy.It was the strongest signal yet from Chinese authorities that abandoning the One China policy, which guides relations with self-ruling Taiwan, would upset decades of carefully managed Sino-US relations and end cooperation between the world's top two econ

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese authorities detained 13 people over the collapse of scaffolding at a power plant construction site that killed 74 workers, as a preliminary investigation zeroed in on how the building company had rushed the job.Most of the dead had been working on the interior concrete wall of a massive circular cooling tower 70 meters (230 feet) up when the scaffolding collapsed Thursday morning, resulting in one of China's most serious industrial accidents in years. In a statement issue

BEIJING (AFP) -- Coca-Cola workers in three Chinese cities have gone on strike after the US soft drinks giant announced it was selling its bottling interests in the country. Strikes and other labour protests have surged in recent years in China, where growth is slowing and parts of the economy are moribund.The beverage giant announced last week it was selling all its bottling assets in mainland China to Hong Kong conglomerate Swire Pacific and COFCO Corporation, one of China's state-owned food g

BEIJING (AFP) -- At least 67 people were killed when part of a power station under construction in China collapsed Thursday, state media reported, the latest industrial accident in a country with a dismal safety record. A cooling tower platform plunged to the ground in the early hours, trapping an unknown number of people beneath it, the official Xinhua news agency said.State broadcaster CCTV put the toll at 67, with local reports saying one person was still missing and two others injured.Pictur

BEIJING (AP) -- Typhoon Haima forced the evacuations of more than 50,000 people in southern China after hammering the northern Philippines with ferocious wind and rain, triggering flooding, landslides and power outages and killing at least 13 people.No deaths were immediately reported Saturday in China from the typhoon. Residents in the cities of Shanwei and Shantou, in China’s Guangdong province, were forced to move to safer ground as the storm hit, local authorities and state media reported. S