CHINA

Here is a brief rundown of important events around the world Monday morning, August 29, 2011.

Tropical storm Nanmadol headed for China on Monday, losing strength after drenching southern and eastern Taiwan, forcing evacuations, shutting businesses and disrupting transport, but causing no major damage or casualties.

Record gold prices, rather than denting China's enthusiasm for bullion, have emboldened investors to plough more money into gold bars and riskier bullion-based derivatives.

China's fast-growing consumerism and lax policing of ivory laws are the latest threats to wild elephant populations, said an author of a recent report on endangered species.

The hardline Chinese official removed last week as Communist Party chief of restive Tibet has been made head of the province in the center of contention over China's Catholics, giving him an influential role in another sensitive religious issue.

A U.S. and European push to impose U.N. Security Council sanctions on Syria for its bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators is meeting fierce resistance from Russia and China, U.N. diplomats said.

A court in southwest China has charged three Tibetan monks with intentional homicide for hiding a fellow monk and preventing him from getting treatment after he set himself on fire, state news agency Xinhua reported Friday.

Record gold prices, rather than denting China's enthusiasm for bullion, have emboldened investors to plough more money into gold bars and riskier bullion-based derivatives.

The top after-market NYSE gainers on Friday are: Banco Santander, Brookfield Office Properties, Jaguar Mining, Sandridge Energy, Radioshack, Toll Brothers, General Growth Properties, Endeavour Silver Corp, Bank of America and CVR Energy.

Concern over climate change has taken a back seat to economic concerns in developed nations, a recent poll indicates.

A drive to benefit from record bullion prices lifted Australian gold production by 10 percent, or 24 metric tons, to 270 metric tons in the 2010/11 financial year, maintaining Australia's No. 2 ranking behind China, a sector survey released on Sunday showed.

Chinese authorities seem to waging a war on pop music. The Ministry of Culture has handed music download Web sites a blacklist of 100 so-called offending songs that the sites must remove as they pose a threat to China's national cultural security, say reports.

Scientists have discovered the oldest mammalian ancestor in northeast China, according to a paper published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

The Bank of America (BAC.N) is completing plans to sell over half of its shares in the China Construction Bank (0939.HK), with a group of Asian and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds negotiating to buy, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

Tanzanian authorities have seized as many as 1,041 elephant tusks on the island of Zanzibar, in the largest ivory haul in a year, reports say.

scientists believe that the newly discovered remains of the so-called Jurassic mother indicate the ancient ancestor of modern mammals.

Poor sales for chips. PCs, network equipment and chipmaking products sends a warning that tech growth is easing

Bank of America could strike a deal as early as Monday to sell about half of its 10 percent stake in China Construction Bank, CNBC reported Friday, citing an anonymous source.

Guinea is in advanced talks with state-owned China Power Investment to develop a bauxite mine and build an alumina refinery, deep water port and a power plant in the West African state, Guinean government sources said.

Ghana's parliament on Friday approved a $3 billion Chinese loan and the country's finance minister said the west African nation was in talks with China's Exim bank for loans worth another $6 billion, which are part of a broader Chinese package.

On the grounds of the Bodyworks weight loss campus in Beijing, 30 tubby men and women sweat profusely, gasping for air as they pound the treadmills in an exercise room.