NEW DELHI - SEVERAL hundred Tibetan exile leaders gathered in northern India on Sunday for a landmark meeting widely expected to determine the direction of the movement that has struggled for decades to win autonomy from China.

The weeklong meeting that begins Monday was called by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, saying that new ideas were needed following the repeated failure of talks with China.

BEIJING - CHINA should move quickly to provide rural areas with better education, health, social security and employment services to sustain the country's economic growth during the global slowdown, a UN agency said on Sunday.

Despite the progress Beijing has made in reducing poverty and increasing life expectancy and literacy, rural citizens in China still have less access to basic public services than city dwellers, the UN Development Program said.

TAIPEI - TAIWAN plans to launch a multi-billion-dollar shopping coupon programme to stimulate domestic consumption amid the global economic crisis, it was reported on Sunday.

The programme, based on a similar initiative launched by Japan in 1999, may cost the government up to 70 billion Taiwan dollars (S$3.22 billion), the Taipei-based Commercial Times said.