Beijing - Amnesty International on Saturday said it feared China planned to execute a man convicted of spying for Taiwan and sentenced to death 18 months ago.

A Beijing court this week asked the family of former medical scientist Wo Weihan to apply to visit him within seven days after denying them access for nearly four years, the London-based group said in a statement.

"This sudden move suggests that the Supreme People's Court has approved the death sentence and that the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court is preparing to execute Wo Weihan," the group said.

Wo, 59, was sentenced to death in May 2007 for spying after a closed trial, losing an appeal in February.

Lima  - Chinese leader Hu Jintao met with former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan Friday in Lima, in a historic meeting that was the first high-level encounter between both parties outside China or Taiwan.

The two men met at the Los Delfines Hotel in the Peruvian capital ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' meeting, to which member economy Taiwan has for the first time been able to send a high-level representative.

Results of a new rodent study suggest that a daily exercise routine helps not only in keeping excess weight at bay but it can also reverse age related memory decline. Natural age related memory decline is due to a decline in the production of neural stem cells in the hippocampus of the brain. This is a part of the brain which plays a key role in perking-up memory and learning and this slow down in brain cell production is linked to impaired memory and learning.

Wellington - A New Zealand Air Force plane found no trace of 29 fishermen believed to be drifting in life rafts in the Pacific after a second day of low level searches over thousands of square kilometres of ocean on Friday.

The maritime surveillance Orion returned to Samoa after covering half an identified search area for the crew of the Taiwanese long liner Ta Ching 21 which was found burned out and floating near Kiribati's Phoenix Islands on November 9.

Friday's search was hampered by poor weather and will resume on Saturday. Then, it is likely to be called off if there is no sign of the men, who are believed to have abandoned their boat after it caught fire and taken to three lifeboats.

Taipei - Taiwan, still reeling from its defeat at the hands of China at the Beijing Olympics, is aiming to advance to the top eight at the 2009 World Baseball Classic, a baseball official said Friday.

"In the first World Baseball Classic held in 2006, Taiwan failed to make it into the top eight. So our goal is to beat either Japan or South Korea and advance into the top eight," Lin Tzung-cheng, secretary-general of the Chinese-Taipei Baseball Association, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.