Being online boosts chances of being in love

People who have Internet access at home are more likely to be in a relationship, with the Web gaining in importance as a meeting place for those seeking love, according to US research.
Researchers from Stanford University said the Internet is especially important for bringing together same-sex couples.
The Internet may also soon replace friends as the main way in which Americans meet their partners.
"Although prior research on the social impacts of Internet use has been rather ambiguous about the social cost of time spent online, our research suggests that Internet access has an important role to play in helping Americans find mates," said Michael Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology.
The study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta on Monday, showed that 82 percent of people in the study who had Internet access at home also had a spouse or romantic partner, compared to 62 percent for those who did not have Internet access.
The study used data from a winter 2009 survey of 4,002 adults across the United States. Slightly more than 3,000 had a spouse or romantic partner.
Rosenfeld and Reuben Thomas, of the City University of New York, found the Internet is the one social arena that is unambiguously gaining importance as a place where couples meet.
"It is possible that in the next several years the Internet could eclipse friends as the most influential way Americans meet their romantic partners, displacing friends out of the top position for the first time since the early 1940s," Rosenfeld said in a statement.
The researchers said they found that the Internet was especially important for finding potential partners in groups where the supply is small or difficult to identify such as in the gay, lesbian, and middle-aged heterosexual communities.
Rosenfeld said that among the couples who met within two years of the survey, 61 percent of same-sex couples and 21 percent of heterosexual couples met online.

One in five babies are now born to women over 35

One in five babies are now born to women over 35 as would-be parents feel pressure of high mortgages and debt.
One in five mothers is approaching middle age by the time she has a child, figures have revealed.
The boom in motherhood among older women means more than 140,000 babies were born to women of 35 or older last year - 20 per cent of all births in England and Wales.
The proportion of babies with mothers in their late 30s and older has gone up by a third in ten years as more women delay having families.
Fathers are also increasingly likely to be close to middle age when they are faced with bringing up young children. The latest count showed that two thirds of new fathers are over 30.
The breakdown from the Office for National Statistics raised new questions over the trend for parents to be older and its impact on the health and upbringing of children.
Medical authorities say there are greater risks for mothers and babies when mothers are over 35, and older parents face a greater chance of ill-health or disability while their children are still young.
Numbers of older mothers have been shooting up in recent years, partly because more women are choosing education and careers over early marriage and family, and partly because many reach their 30s burdened with high mortgages, debt, and living costs that encourages them to postpone having children.
The trend to co-habitation rather than marriage also means many women are unwilling to have children while they are uncertain about the degree of commitment of their partner.
The new figures showed that 141,246 babies were born to mothers over the age of 35 last year, a fifth of the 706,248 births in England and Wales.
Of these, nearly 27,000 were born to mothers over 40; nearly 1,500 to mothers over 45, and 89 to women over the age of 50. In 1999, only 15 per cent of newborn babies had mothers over 35.
There have been a series of warning to older mothers about the risks of having children later in life.
Earlier this year Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists President Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran said: 'Later pregnancy is associated with more complications and specialised obstetric help is required to care for this growing group of women.'

China Evacuates 150,000 People as Typhoon Nears

Chinese authorities have evacuated more than 150,000 people from the country's southeastern coast as one of the strongest typhoons in years approaches the region. Typhoon Megi was centered over the northern part of the South China Sea late Thursday and was moving north slowly toward the eastern part of China's Guangdong province. Weather models predict the storm will make landfall Saturday near Shantou city, east of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Observatory said Megi had maximum sustained winds of 175 kilometers an hour and could intensify before hitting land. China has issued a red alert for the typhoon, the highest of its four-step warning system. It warned of huge storm surges that could devastate coastal villages and cities. In Hong Kong, a strong wind warning was in effect.Chinese authorities said they were moving residents of Guangdong to higher ground and already had evacuated 150,000 people in Fujian province to the north.

Delicate white hexagons of shape-retaining cloth drape the interior

Shang Xia means 'Up-Down' in Mandarin, a phrase that is meant to convey a concept of yin-yang harmony. The brand is backed by French luxury giant Hermès International SCA and run by French-trained Shanghai designer Jiang Qiong'er. It is positioned as a Chinese brand, and its products incorporate traditional Chinese craftsmanship, while its owners play down its foreign provenance.

Hermès would not specify how much it has invested in the brand, though according to Ms. Jiang its stake exceeds 75%. The French company's involvement will buy Shang Xia time to succeed, she says. 'If you can take enough time to design [something], and can give the craftspeople time to make it, it is a luxury and clients appreciate it.'

Two years after the Shang Xia project was launched, the brand finally made its debut on Sep. 16. with a small press conference and presentation at an upmarket Shanghai venue, followed by a low-key in-store opening party and a VIP dinner cruise. It was a subdued event by Shanghai fashion standards─there were few of the usual contingent of international celebrities on hand ─ in line with Shang Xia's plans to eschew any immediate expansion or large-scale marketing campaign. The 125-square-meter store is tucked away at the back of the first floor of Hong Kong Plaza, a new luxury mall that has few shoppers as yet. Its initial line of about 200 designs of furniture, tea ─ and dishware, apparel, jewelry and accessories ranges from 180 yuan to 500,000 yuan, or about $19 to about $54,000. Hermès range is priced a little higher and runs to over 1 million Chinese yuan for the brand's best watches. A Shang Xia spokesperson said sales of its products were going well so far, with tea sets, cashmere and jewelry among the top movers.

'We are not trying to be fashionable,' says Ms. Jiang. 'We aim for an aesthetic standard that is timeless. Like the Ming Dynasty chair, we want to be like that and still in 50 or 100 years seem modern. Now we are just starting, and hope to find our own style.'

Hermès Chief Executive Patrick Thomas avoids discussing how Shang Xia may impact his company's mainland China strategy. Hermès has 20 stores in China, including two that opened earlier this year. Across Asia (excluding Japan), the brand's sales were up 45% in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period last year. It's an upward trend that is not unique to Hermès. 'The growth of many brands here is the same,' says Mr. Thomas. 'You have people with taste, and the desire for long-lasting, beautiful objects.'

Hermès' support is a mixed blessing for Shang Xia, complicating its identity as a mainland Chinese brand. It is a familiar conundrum for those seeking the prize of being China's first homegrown luxury brand, such as Taiwan's Shiatzy Chen, or the Richemont-owned Hong Kong brand Shanghai Tang: foreign involvement grants global cache, but dilutes the claims of 'Chineseness' that can be aggressively questioned in the mainland. On the popular internet portal Sina, commentators dismissed Shang Xia by comparing it to the 'Chinese' food sold at Kentucky Fried Chicken's outlets in China. Commentators also pilloried the name Shang Xia as awkward and stilted.

Matthew Crabbe, co-founder of consultancy Access Asia, takes a more optimistic view.

'It is all local materials and based on local crafts, and its marketing is crafts as family tradition. That will have an appeal to Chinese consumers,' Mr. Crabbe says. 'Chinese [consumers] are increasingly exploring their roots and crafts and bringing them up to date. [Middle and upper class Chinese] have a romantic view of the rural past and rural culture, and crafts. There is a growing interest. For example, top-notch luxury tea. This fits in with that trend.'

Shang Xia claims that all its products are made in collaboration with Chinese artisans or in-house craftspeople, combining traditional techniques with modern designs, and Ms. Jiang says she hopes the brand will contribute to the preservation and renewal of China's endangered heritage crafts.

According to a 2009 report by the China Arts and Crafts Association, of more than half of 1,800 officially recognized traditional crafts are struggling or in danger of dying out. 'The constant rise of the current Chinese economy and the rapid development of technology have changed the cultural spirit of Chinese [people,]' says Zhao Zhishuo, president of the China National Arts and Crafts Society. 'Traditional crafts face the challenge of preserving the exquisite traditional skills of thousands of years

Ms. Jiang views the problem as generational, recalling how the embroidery lessons that were standard in her schooldays have been eliminated. 'Now there are fewer and fewer young people who are willing to learn, because craftsmanship is a work that they need time to be trained: a minimum of five years of training. That's why they prefer to work in restaurants, in hotels, or sell mobile phones, where they need to be trained for only one day, one week and they can start.'

Ethnic Fighting Rocks Kosovo Town

Troops of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European police have increased patrols in and around Kosovo's volatile northern town of Mitrovica, after at least six people were injured in clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians late Friday. Police officials say explosions also destroyed cars and properties.
A tense calm returned to Kosovo's second largest and most ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, where since late Friday about half a dozen people, including fire fighters, were wounded in clashes between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
There were violent protests followed by two huge explosions that rocked Mitrovica, destroying cars and damaging properties. Police and fire fighters rushed to the scene as the first blast destroyed at least seven cars near a bar in the town's Serb district. Security officials said Serbs then set two Albanian shops alight.
But as a fire brigade arrived to put out these blazes, a second explosive device apparently detonated, hampering efforts to secure the area.
Troops of the Western military alliance NATO and European Union police stepped up their presence around Mitrovica, and armoured vehicles were seen patrolling the streets.
The latest clashes came after a Serb teenager was reportedly hurt by two knife-wielding Albanians on Tuesday, who were later detained. That incident prompted hundreds of Serbs to burn down several Albanian shops and to damage cars with Kosovo license plates.
Observers say the latest violence also reflects deep rooted divisions between the Serb minority of 120,000 people, and the two-million strong ethnic Albanian community of Kosovo.
Serbs are angry that Kosovo's government declared the territory independent from neighboring Serbia, last year. Kosovo's secession in February occurred nearly a decade after NATO bombings ended a Serbian military crackdown on independence seeking ethnic Albanians.
Friday's fighting underscored Western concern that Mitrovica will become once again a major flashpoint of ethnic fighting, and attacks against Western peacekeepers. The town was already the scene of deadly clashes in March between Serbs and international forces.

Iran Ready for 'Fair' Nuclear Talks

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki says his country is ready to resume talks on its nuclear program if those talks are "fair."
Mottaki told China's foreign minister (Yang Jiechi) that Tehran is prepared to renew dialogue with the Vienna Group, as well as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, a group known as the P5+1. However, Mottaki said the talks will be successful only if they are "fair" and recognize Iran's right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. The Iranian and Chinese foreign ministers met this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, but Mottaki's comments were not made public until Thursday.

Earlier Wednesday, the P5+1 announced it had renewed efforts to seek an "early negotiated solution" with Iran. The group said it wanted to re-establish dialogue with Tehran on a nuclear swap proposal that was introduced last year.

Financial chiefs of the world's leading economies have wrapped up a gathering in South Korea

At a similar gathering last year, members of the so-called G20 set of advanced economies agreed on emergency spending to stem a global crisis brought on by the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in late 2008.
The consensus at this year's meeting, here at the South Korean seaside city of Busan, is that those measures have worked. Central bankers and finance ministers gathered here from around the world say the economy is growing again.
Now, many leaders agree it is time for them to start backing off from stimulus spending, and get their debts and deficits under control. The ongoing debt crisis in Greece and other southern European countries served as a reminder at this meeting of the danger of overspending - but also of the possibility that trimming spending too sharply could plunge the world economy back into recession.
South Korean Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun, the host, says leaders have agreed to strike a balance.
Summarizing a final group communiqué Saturday, he says recent events highlight the importance of sustainable public finances. He says member countries need to put in place credible policies that encourage growth and are sustainable, in a way that is tailored to each country's individual circumstances.
G20 members also want new regulations, to help avoid the kind of risky behavior by financial institutions that brought on the U.S. banking crisis. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says reforming international finance has Washington's support.
"The United States is moving aggressively to fix the things we got wrong, and to strengthen our economic fundamentals," said Geithner. "And we will give our full support to the G20 agenda of economic reform."
One step that was widely discussed coming into the meeting was a tax on certain bank transactions, commonly called a "bank levy." Funds raised by such a levy would have been set aside for future bank bailouts if necessary. That idea was dropped amid disagreements, but members say they still want to agree on some kind of "safety net" for international banking.
The communiqué produced at the Busan meeting will be put before heads of government when they gather in Seoul for a G20 summit in Seoul this November.

Pakistani Relief Efforts Stalled in Hardest Hit Areas

Six days after last Saturday's deadly earthquake in Pakistan, relief efforts remain stalled in some of the hardest-hit areas. The town of Balakot, about 15 kilometers from the quake's epicenter, where the survivors are still desperate for emergency assistance.

U.N. officials say aid workers are in a race against time to save thousands of earthquake victims stranded in remote mountain villages near the epicenter.

Conditions in Balakot suggest they are losing, and losing badly.

Traffic out of town is at a standstill. This ambulance has been stuck for nearly five minutes.

Aid workers say part of the problem is the thousands of volunteers who are driving here hoping to lend a hand.

Unfortunately, their good intentions are having dire consequences, clogging roads and keeping emergency supplies and professional rescue teams from reaching Balakot.

Relief worker Hamid Mehmood says, someone with authority needs to step in and impose some sort of order over the chaos.

"I don't know where they are. For the last five days, I did not see a single official come out and talk to people," said Mr. Mehmood.

Nearly 90 percent of this town was leveled by the earthquake.

In places, it is impossible to distinguish individual houses. All you can see is one enormous pile of concrete Where the local school once stood, a Jordanian rescue team is clearing debris around a body.

More than 350 children died here. Just now, workers say, they have found one of their teachers.
The air here is thick with the smell of decomposing bodies, and most people wear surgical masks as they walk through town.

Aid agencies say the priority now is providing winterized tents for the thousands of people left without homes.

The temperatures here are already approaching freezing at night and local residents say it will start snowing in just a few weeks.
Dildar Fani, who lost more than 300 members of his extended family this week, says time is running out for those who survived.

"There is no shelter," he said. "Go with me and see all the people with family, with children … these people will die!"
 
He says entire villages just outside Balakot still have not received any aid at all. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people are sick, starving and lack even the most basic shelter.

And weather experts are now predicting severe thunderstorms, which in these towns high in the Himalayan mountains, could potentially bring the season's first snow.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. on Wednesday filed for bankruptcy-court protection

MGM filed a 'prepackaged' Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York that has approval from nearly all its creditors. Creditors last week approved a plan to forgive more than $4 billion in debt for ownership stakes in the restructured studio and turn over management to Spyglass Entertainment co-founders Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum.

Dissident creditor Carl Icahn agreed to support MGM's restructuring after the studio made several changes to its reorganization plan. Mr. Icahn will get a board seat once MGM exits bankruptcy. Messrs. Barber and Birnbaum will no longer be chairmen of MGM's new board at the holding company level. And older Spyglass films won't be merged with MGM's film library.

Spyglass, the production firm behind recent films such as the latest incarnation of 'Star Trek' and 'Get Him to the Greek,' had planned to merge some older films for a little more than a 4% equity stake in the studio. But Mr. Icahn protested the films were overvalued.

Mr. Icahn said the changes enabled MGM to 'avoid a potentially costly and disruptive bankruptcy process.' MGM called the changes 'immaterial' and said they would be filed with the bankruptcy court for approval.

MGM said it expects a bankruptcy judge to approve its restructuring in about a month. The studio plans to raise about $500 million upon exiting bankruptcy to fund new films and television shows.

Mr. Icahn had offered to buy out other MGM creditors at a premium to upend the vote on the Spyglass restructuring plan but failed to get enough support to block the deal.

Mr. Icahn has been pushing MGM's most influential creditors to merge with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., a rival studio that he has been trying to take over all year as its largest shareholder.

MGM's largest creditors have agreed informally to continue discussing a possible merger with Lions Gate. But they stopped short of inserting language in the studio's restructuring plan that would specifically require 'good faith' negotiations, said people familiar with the situation.

MGM, home to a 4,100-title film library that includes the 'James Bond' and 'Rocky' franchises, struggled amid debt taken on in a 2005 leveraged buyout and proved unable to produce enough new movies to keep customers interested in its older films.

Switzerland is in an uproar over the government's decision to apologize to Libyan leader

Muammar Gadhafi, for the arrest of his son and daughter-in-law last year in Geneva for abusing their domestic servants. Libya had demanded an apology as the price of re-establishing normal relations.

Criminal charges against Muammar Gadhafi's son, Hannibal and his pregnant daughter-in-law were dropped after the two abused domestic servants reached an out-of court settlement and withdrew their complaint.

Nevertheless, Libya was quick to retaliate against this insult. It arrested two Swiss businessmen, threatened to cut off crude oil deliveries, withdrew its money from Swiss banks, and told Swiss International Air Lines it could no longer fly to Tripoli.

Mr. Gadhafi demanded an apology for the so-called unjustified arrest of his son and daughter-in-law as the price for letting the Swiss nationals return home and for ending economic sanctions.

The government resisted this demand for more than a year. But, finally gave in. The Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz went to Tripoli to personally apologize to leader Gadhafi.

Under an agreement signed by the two sides, a three person independent arbitration panel will be set up to decide whether the Geneva police handled the arrest appropriately.

Swiss People's Party Member of Parliament, Luza Strom is incensed at the way the government has handled this matter.

　
"I had the feeling the Geneva police did not make any mistakes. And, if that is the case, it is a scandal that we apologize," said Strom. "I am afraid that Switzerland made concessions just because of two individuals who are in a really difficult situation. And, the country should not do that because if the country starts to do this, any terrorist in the world could start hijacking somebody and then our country would be forced to make concessions."

As it is, Swiss president Merz is being criticized for leaving Libya without the two detained Swiss citizens in tow. Libya says they would be released soon.

This has not been a good week for Switzerland. The Gadhafi affair follows concessions by Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS, to turn over data on 4,500 wealthy American clients suspected of tax evasion to U.S. authorities.

And now, the government is being criticized for groveling before leader Gadhafi.

One dissenting voice is Libya's Geneva lawyer, Charles Poncet, who says he is very happy that Bern and Tripoli have managed to overcome their differences.

"In my view, this could have been handled with a little bit-you know, a little bit of skill. This would have been over a long time ago," said Poncet. "And, I am just surprised that it took so long quite frankly."

　

In the aftermath of their arrest, the Gadhafi couple filed a civil suit against the Geneva police. Poncet says a hearing due next month would be suspended as a first step and then withdrawn.

Pressure is growing on Israel after its commandos raided a flotilla of aid ships that were trying to break the blockade on Gaza. The raid early Monday

But very little of that criticism is coming from people at home.
Israel began sending home some of the nearly 700 pro-Palestinian activists who were aboard the six vessels.
Some, like this Turkish man, spoke of the violence they witnessed when Israeli commandos came down on the main ship, a Turkish vessel, during the raid in the eastern Mediterranean.
He says the commandos came down from helicopters and attacked the activists. He said the commandos first warned the activists, who had told the soldiers they were not armed.
Israeli military officials point to video that shows activists hitting the commandos with iron bars and chairs, and say the soldiers acted in self-defense when they opened fire.
The ships are sitting at the Israeli port of Ashdod. Some of their passengers were led away in handcuffs. Authorities say those who are agreeing to expulsion are being taken to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport and flown home.
By late Tuesday, scores had been repatriated. They included American Edward Peck, a former diplomat who had served as U.S. ambassador to Mauritania.
Hundreds of others remained at detention centers across Israel. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told VOA some could be put on trial for attacking the commandos. "Those who have been clearly identified as aggressors are being questioned by the security service and it is possible that they will be prosecuted," he said.
As international condemnation mounts, there is also some criticism at home of how the raid was carried out. Newspaper columnists and some members of the opposition questioned the legality of the operation, and whether the flotilla could have been intercepted without using force.
But overall Israelis express overwhelming support for the raid. Many have little sympathy for those in the Gaza Strip, where militants have been firing rockets at Israel for several years. Some believe that lifting the blockade would be opening the door to a flow of weapons that would be used to attack Israelis.
On Jerusalem's busy Ben Yehuda Street, a man says the Israeli military acted in the interest of protecting its citizens when it intercepted the flotilla. He says it was the right thing to do because there simply was no other choice.
Another man says he has doubts about the methods the commandos used, and worries about the raid's effects on Israel's image overseas. "In general, it was the right thing to do, but not in the way it was done," he said.
Israel has begun moving cargo from the aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip after inspecting it.
Egypt announced it is temporarily lifting the blockade it has been enforcing, along with Israel, on the Gaza Strip.
Tensions remained high along Israel's border with Gaza, where the Israeli military says gunfire erupted after militants crossed the border from Gaza into Israel and opened fire at soldiers.
Israeli war planes struck targets in Gaza on Tuesday in response to a rocket attack.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Beijing's top foreign-affairs official during a meeting

Mrs. Clinton also offered to mediate a territorial dispute between China and Japan, as the Obama administration seeks an increasingly central role in addressing rising Asian security threats.

U.S. officials are concerned that Pyongyang could seek to disrupt Seoul's hosting on Nov. 11-12 of the Group of 20 conference of major economic nations. Asian media reports in recent weeks have suggested North Korean leader Kim Jong Il could be preparing to stage his country's third nuclear test -- something U.S. officials wouldn't rule out Saturday.

'We're right on the verge of one of the most important diplomatic functions in the history of the Korean Peninsula, with the hosting of the G-20,' said a senior U.S. official who took part in Mrs. Clinton's 2 1/2-hour meeting with Dai Bingguo in Hainan. 'We have made very clear to China that we expect it to weigh in in Pyongyang about the need to in no way take provocative steps during this delicate time.'

The State Department official said Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Dai also discussed joint preparations for China President Hu Jintao to visit Washington early in 2011. And they sought to lay out a clear path for Washington and Beijing to resume normal military contacts as a means to address regional security challenges. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeatedly has expressed his desire to visit Beijing at the earliest possible time.

Mrs. Clinton's trip to Hainan is a sensitive issue for Washington. In 2001, Chinese security forces grounded an American EP-3 surveillance plane on the island after it collided with a Chinese jet fighter. The plane's 24-person crew were held and interrogated for 10 days and released only after the Bush administration issued an apology for the incident.

Earlier Saturday in Hanoi, Vietnam, Mrs. Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to attend the East Asia Summit, a gathering of 10 Southeast Asian nations and other regional powers, such as China, South Korea and Japan. The Obama administration views the summit, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as key forums through which to press U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific.

The meeting of 18 countries, however, was dominated by a continuing diplomatic row between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea -- alternately called Diaoyu by Beijing and Senkaku by Tokyo.

Asian leaders had hoped the two countries could use the East Asia Summit to reduce tensions sparked last month when Japan's coast guard detained a Chinese sailor whose boat challenged Tokyo's maritime lines. Tempers flared anew this weekend when Japan's foreign minister restated his country's sovereignty over the islands and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao refused to hold a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

U.S. officials said Saturday that Mrs. Clinton, both in meetings with Mr. Dai and with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, offered to host a trilateral meeting with China and Japan to address the islands dispute, as well as broader security and economic issues. Mrs. Clinton stressed in Hanoi that Washington fears the fallout of any further deterioration in relations between Beijing and Tokyo.

'It is in all of our interest for China and Japan to have stable, peaceful relations,' Mrs. Clinton told a news conference. 'We have recommended to both that the United States is more than willing to host a trilateral, where we would bring Japan and China and their foreign ministers together to discuss a range of issues.'

Washington is walking a fine diplomatic line in the island dispute. While the U.S. says it is committed to defend the islands under its 50-year-old defense treaty with Japan, it has also stated that the U.S. takes no position on who ultimately controls them.

China was noncommittal to attending the trilateral meeting. And the foreign minister cautioned the U.S. on its position. '[He] urged the U.S. to be cautious in both wording and action in the issue of Diaoyu Islands, a highly sensitive issue,' China's foreign ministry said.

Mrs. Clinton used her speech at the East Asia Summit to again call for the establishment of an international legal mechanism through which to solve territorial disputes in Asia. A similar comment made by Mrs. Clinton in July at another Asian regional conference in Hanoi sparked outrage in Beijing and led to Chinese charges that the U.S. was intervening in Beijing's internal affairs. China claims sovereignty over all of the South China Sea.

'The United States has a national interest in the freedom of navigation and unimpeded lawful commerce,' Mrs. Clinton said during her speech. 'And when disputes arise over maritime territory, we are committed to resolving them peacefully based on customary international law.'

Mrs. Clinton then praised Beijing for entering into discussions with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, on a 'binding code of conduct' for their activities in the South China Sea.

Mrs. Clinton did appear to make progress Saturday in diminishing fears that China might use its monopoly over rare-earth materials as a political weapon against Japan and other competitors.