China

World heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman is prohibited from fighting anyone else for the next 18 months unless he gives former title holder Lennox Lewis an immediate rematch, a U.S. District Court judge ruled yesterday.

The Bush administration will remain neutral on Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympics, despite powerful appeals from members of Congress to oppose the proposal on human rights grounds.

Toronto, despite being one of the front-runners to stage the 2008 Summer Olympics, faces an uphill battle, according to International Olympic Committee (IOC) marketing chief Dick Pound.

French President Jacques Chirac, promoting the Paris bid to stage the 2008 Olympic Games, has told Russian Olympic officials that the organisation of the Games would be problem-free if they were held in the French capital.

Boxing promoter Don King has offered $12.5 million to the Lennox Lewis camp to stage a world heavyweight title rematch with Hasim Rahman.

About 200 Tibetans marched through the Indian capital on Wednesday in protest at Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games and China's poor human rights record.

After a campaign which will be remembered for human rights demonstrations and a few ill-chosen words about cannibalism, Olympic chiefs will decide the venue of the 2008 Summer Games this week at what is expected to be an historic meeting.

Tom.com, the media and advertising company controlled by Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-Shing, has won the broadcast and advertising rights to China’s national basketball league, adding to its portfolio of Chinese volleyball, table tennis, rowing and college soccer rights.

New York's international network, many hotels and plans to build new sports arenas amounted to a strong bid to stage the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, a United States Olympic Committee (USOC) panel said.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has bought up all the outdoor advertising space in Beijing ahead of the Olympic Games which will be held there in 2008 in an attempt to limit the commercialisation of the event.

The Japanese unit of global communications company Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW) is to form a joint venture with Japan's largest entertainment television content firm Yoshimoto Kogyo Co Ltd. to develop sports and entertainment content.

When Austria was chosen as the venue for this year's beach volleyball world championships there was just one hitch - the landlocked Alpine nation has no beaches.

Sports rankings company Footballranking.com has formed a strategic alliance with China-based Footballcircle.com.

China has set up a 76-member committee to organise Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Sydney Olympic organisers have conjured up an extra half-million tickets to the 2000 Games to defuse a public outcry over a ticketing policy that has left the Australian public scrambling for seats.

French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Internet company China.com Corporation have announced that they have created a joint online information service devoted to Asian sports news.