Lijiang (China), July 28 : Every evening for two hours, about a hundred music lovers gather to listen to the ancient Naxi music in the 800 years old Lijiang Old Town, a world heritage site which attracts visitors from different parts of the world, in Yunnan province of China.

Their charm is to listen to an orchestra comprising 20 elderly men, at least four of them octogenarians and two of them blind. It plays scintillating traditional music on over a century old musical instruments like the “Erhu” or “Pippa”.

Gaza City - The de-facto Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip has banned three major West Bank-based Palestinian dailies in the salient, a statement by the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Monday.

The Palestinian Journalists Union in the West Bank said Hamas police in Gaza prevented the three newspapers, al-Quds, al-Ayyam and al-Hayat al-Jadida, from being distributed after they arrived in the enclave.

The Interior Ministry said it blocked their distribution in the Gaza Strip because of what it described as their unfair coverage of a bombing attack on a Hamas car on Friday.

Khost (Afghanistan), July 28 : At least 70 insurgents were killed near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan, when helicopter gunships and ground-fighting forces repulsed an attack by Taliban-led insurgents.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) force said that insurgents numbering over 100, tried to capture the Spera district centre in Khost, 15km from the border with Pakistan, on Sunday with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

Melbourne, July 28 : Mothers in Australia are now being offered postnatal care in luxury hotels instead of private hospitals, all covered by health insurance.

Sydney''s Prince of Wales Private Hospital is the latest to offer such a service, transferring new mothers by limousine to the Crowne Plaza Coogee Beach, where they receive follow up care in dedicated maternity rooms by midwives and supervised by obstetricians.

The service is thought to be modelled on similar five-star maternity scheme offered by the Ashord Hospital at the Adelaide Hilton, to mothers who have uncomplicated vaginal births.

And in Melbourne, St Vincent''s and the Mater Private Hospital are reported to have four dedicated rooms at the Park Hyatt.

Cairo  - Arab League head Amr Mussa left Monday on a key visit to Tehran to attend a foreign ministers meeting of members of the Non-Aligned Movement, Egyptian airport officials said.

The three-day meeting to start Monday aims to prepare for the Non- Aligned Movement Summit to take place in July 2009 at the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh.

Mussa left for Tehran through the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, due to the lack of direct flights between Tehran and Cairo.

During his landmark visit, the Arab League chief will meet with Iranian officials to discuss the current affairs in the Middle East.

Arab countries are generally concerned about Iran's nuclear programme and its growing involvement in regional affairs.

Islamabad  - The two Italian climbers who were rescued from a deadly Himalayan peak two days ago left Islamabad on Saturday for Milan.

Simon Kehrer and Walter Nones were attempting a new route up Nanga Parbat (the Naked Mountain in the Urdu language), when their teammate and celebrated mountaineer Karl Unterkirchner fell to his death in a crevasse on July 15.

Both remained stranded on the 8,126-metre "Killer Mountain" until Thursday, when an army helicopter evacuated them to the nearby town of Gilgit, from where they arrived in Islamabad the following day.