New Delhi, September 29: China has announced that a manned lunar landing is its next target when the current three-stage space program expires in 2020.

“When the three-phased strategy in our manned space program is completed, we will travel even further terrestrially,” said Wang Zhaoyao, deputy head of China’s manned space program office and Shenzhou VII mission spokesman.

“After comprehensively analyzing the general trend in international manned space developments, as well as Chinese realities, we see a manned lunar landing as both a very challenging and tactical field in global hi-tech,” he added.

“We deem it necessary for our country to do something in this field,” he further added.

Beijing, Sept. 29: The wives of China’s first astronauts to walk in space have hardly been able to contain their excitement and emotion over the achievement.

Astronauts' wives Zhang Yao, Zhang ping and Zhang Shujing said they were all happy that the goal had been achieved with success and safety.

Xinhua quoted Zhang Shujing, the wife of Zhai Zhigang, who made his historic walk in space and waved the national flag, as saying: "When he opened the hatch door, my hands were full of sweat."

She said she had lost seven pounds over the past two weeks.

"Now I have prepared lilies and a rose for my husband's return. The rose represents my heart," she said.

Hong Kong - Nearly half of Hong Kong women gamble regularly and 2 per cent of them are pathological gamblers, according to a survey released Monday.

Interviews with almost 1,500 women and teenage girls found that 48 per cent admitted to gambling regularly, compared to 35 per cent three years ago.

Playing the Chinese board game mahjong, card games and lotteries are the most popular form of gambling for women, researchers at a rehabilitation centre for problem gamblers found.

Beijing  - Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou 7 returned safely Sunday to Earth after a three-day trip into space that included China's first ever spacewalk.

The three taikonauts on board touched down safely near the planned landing site in the northern Chinese province of Inner Mongolia at 5:38 pm (0938 GMT) as the capsule's descent by parachute was carried live on Chinese state television, ending a 68-hour mission.

The craft withstood the dangerous re-entry into Earth's atmosphere well, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The taikonauts were also in good health, Xinhua reported, citing ground control officials in Beijing. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was present in the ground control centre to watch the landing.

Beijing - Aircraft builder Airbus opened an assembly plant in China on Sunday, its first production facility outside of Europe.

Airbus said it viewed the modern facility in the port city of Tianjin one hour to the south-east of the capital Beijing as a "milestone" in the globalization of the company's production.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Airbus head Thomas Enders were both present at the opening ceremony on Sunday.

The investment in the plant was between 8 billion and 12 billion yuan (1.2 billion to 1.8 billion dollars), state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Four A320 Airbus craft are expected to be assembled at the Tianjin plant each month by 2011 at the latest.

Jakarta - Indonesia's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency has confirmed melamine had been detected in 12 food products from China, including cookies, candies and drinks, the health ministry and media reports said Saturday.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the country's Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) had found that 12 out of 19 China-based dairy products on sale in the country tested positive for melamine.

Among the poisonous ingredient melamine were found in Oreo stick wafer and M&Ms, Snickers and Guozhen formula milk, she said.