■ BEIJING. Students clash with police. Hundreds of Chinese students clashed with police and overturned and burnt their car after street inspectors beat up a female student, a police officer and witnesses said, the latest in a series of public disturbances. Students from several universities in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, went on the rampage on Wednesday after a student vendor was beaten by several inspectors as they cleared her unlicensed stall, a student witness told ?Reuters?.

■ LONDON. BAE denies wrongdoings. BAE Systems denied any wrongdoing in response to media reports that it paid 1 billion pounds over a decade to a Saudi prince in connection with Britain?s biggest-ever arms export contract. ?The Guardian? newspaper and British broadcaster the ?BBC? said BAE, Europe?s largest defence company, made regular payments to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former ambassador to the United States and currently Secretary-General of the Saudi National Security Council, with the knowledge of Britain?s Ministry of Defence.

■ MILAN. Suspected militants arrested. Italian police said they had arrested a number of people suspected of membership in an Islamic militant group linked to attacks in Tunisia and Algeria earlier this year. Milan police said the arrests had targeted a cell of the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC.

■ VALLETTA. Malta lands migrants rescued by Greek tanker . Malta?s armed forces said yesterday they had landed 27 illegal migrants recovered by a Greek oil tanker. The migrants were found packed in an open boat some 70 miles (110 km) south of Malta late on Wednesday night and transferred to a Maltese patrol boat yesterday. The migrants, all men, said they were from Somalia and the Ivory Coast. The Mediterranean island has been receiving boatloads of migrants almost daily but has also caused controversy by refusing to receive migrants rescued by vessels outside its search and rescue area. Last week, 27 shipwrecked Africans spent three days clinging to tuna nets in the Mediterranean while Malta and Libya argued over who should rescue them. They were eventually picked up by the Italian navy. Thousands are believed to die each year attempting perilous sea crossings to Europe.

■ HUNTSVILLE. Texas executes former deputy sheriff for ?94 murder. Texas executed a former deputy sheriff on Wednesday for the murder of a Houston woman during the robbery of a wedding chapel and flower shop she owned with her mother. Michael Griffith, 56, was the 15th person executed this year and the 394th by Texas since the state restored the death penalty in 1982, six years after the US Supreme Court lifted a national capital punishment ban. Griffith, who was fired in 1993 by the Harris County Sheriff for domestic abuse, was condemned for the murder of Deborah McCormick, 44, on October 10, 1994. McCormick, a mother of two, was found stabbed to death in the Always and Forever Florist Shop and Wedding Chapel by her mother, Mary Ringer. Police arrested Griffith about a month after the murder and found credit cards taken during the robbery and a knife. DNA tests showed McCormick?s blood was on the knife blade. While strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber, Griffith was asked if he had a final statement. ?No, sir,? he said. For his last meal, Griffith requested breakfast food including fried eggs. Texas has 14 more executions scheduled through October.

■ SYDNEY. Asia must share bird flu virus, vaccine . Australia called on Asia-Pacific nations yesterday not to let commercial or national interests stand in the way of creating bird flu vaccines before a pandemic breaks out. ?I want to stress that disease does not respect national borders,? Australian Health Minister Tony Abbott said at the opening of the 2007 APEC Health Ministers? conference in Sydney. There have been 188 deaths globally from the H5N1 bird flu virus since late 2003 and 310 known infections in total, according to World Health Organisation data.