It would be hard to exaggerate the symbolism, or the embarassment, of the Chinese President Hu Jintao having to rush away from the G8 summit in Italy to cope with the outbreak of violence from the Uighur people back home. This was after all the meeting of the world's Big Boys to which China had been invited as the coming power, a moment when it could exert its new-found influence in the discussions on trade, recession and the environment,...

An earthquake reaching 6.0 on the Richter scale hits Yunnan in South-West China, leaving 400,000 homeless and one confirmed death.Thursday's quake centered in Yunnan province's Yao'an county, 60 miles northeast of the tourist city of Dali. The quake injured 325, 24 seriously, the Xinhua News Agency said.Yunnan is a quake-prone, mountainous region that lies on China's southern border with Thailand and Burma It also borders Sichuan province, where a magnitude-7.9 quake last year left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.News ...