Beijing - Pilots serving in China's air force are banned from drinking alcohol with their lunch when at work, according to new regulations in force since Monday.

Soldiers flaunting the ban are threatened with demerit, demotion or dismissal, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The teetotal duty for officers serving in China's air force was to improve the image and the leadership of the troop, the agency reported.

Offenders are to be detected using breathalyzers set up in sentries and posts at parking lots.

Toronto, Aug 11 : Several Canadian nationals have been deported from China following pro-Tibet protests in Beijing.

Steve Andersen, from Edmonton, and a Tibetan-German, was arrested by plainclothes police officers after they unfurled a Tibetan flag.

A short time after the arrests, Mike Hudema, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Alberta, was arrested with four other people from Edmonton.

Beijing - Shares on China's two stock markets plunged by more than 5 per cent on Monday, following a similar fall on the previous trading day at the end of last week.

The key Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks shares traded in local and foreign currencies, lost 5.21 per cent of its value, ending the day down 135.65 points at
2,470.07.

The fall took the Shanghai index to its lowest point since December 2006.

The Shanghai Daily newspaper said Monday's fall was partly spurred by a forecast of a slowing post-Olympic economy by investment bank and analyst Goldman Sachs.

Beijing, Aug. 11 : Huge LED screens, eye-catching lighting systems and multimedia video shows, were one of the hallmarks of the Beijing Olympic Games'' opening ceremony.

According to the China Daily, this was thanks to the efforts of Yu Jianping, director of the technology group for the opening ceremony, who led a 500-strong team of experts.

From the elevated platform to the video system, the creation team worked hard to ensure that the whole ceremony went without a hitch.

"One of the features of the ceremony was its perfect combination of advanced technology and great originality," Yu was quoted, as saying.

Beijing  - Severe rainstorms caused flash floods and landslides that killed at least 20 people and left 10 missing in south-western China's Yunnan province over the last few days, state media said on Monday.

The storms from Thursday to Sunday affected some 820,000 people in Yunnan and forced the evacuation of 2,400, the Xinhua news agency quoted local officials as saying.

Dharamsala, Aug 11 : Continuing with their agitation against China, Tibetan nuns and monks here staged a protest today.

Around 30 nuns and monks from the Dhomalin nunnery sat in silent protest against Chinese atrocities inside Tibet.

The protesters said they were not against Olympics as generally believed but were protesting against the human rights violation by the host country, inside Tibet.