United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan held talks today in Beijing with China's Foreign Minister, reviewing key regional developments, including the nuclear programme in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the weekend's elections in Afghanistan.

China – one the world’s largest countries affected by tuberculosis – has seen a 30 per cent drop in the occurrence of the disease since the introduction of a new control strategy in the last decade, putting it on track to meet the worldwide goal of cutting in half the incidences of the illness by 2015, the United Nations health agency said today.

Despite China's impressive economic achievements, the country's elderly women suffer disproportionate poverty rates, the incidence of female suicide is rising, and the skewed gender balance among newborns will have severe future demographic consequences, according to a United Nations report published today.