China

Somyot Poompanmoung's comments marked the first time authorities have publicly linked the Aug. 17 bombing to the smuggling of Uighurs, after weeks of hinting at it and saying only that they believe the attack was carried out by human traffickers angered by a crackdown on their network.

More signs of slowing economic growth in China weighed on prices for copper and other commodities Monday. That sent prices for materials stocks lower. Energy stocks fell along with the price of crude oil.

The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 80 points, or 0.5 percent, to 16,352 as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index gave up 10 points, or 0.6 percent, to 1,950.

The Tom Cruise action epic opened with $18.5 million (£12 million) on Tuesday (September 8) - making it highest-grossing debut ever for a Hollywood 2D film.

Overall, it only trails 3D films Furious 7's $54.4 million (£35.4 million), Avengers: Age of Ultron's $29.2 million (£19 million), Transformers: Age of Extinction's $27.4 million (£17.8 million) and Terminator Genisys's $26.7 million (£17.3) in biggest debuts for a US film in China.

Rogue Nation hit a milestone over the weekend in the West as well, as it passed the $500 million (£325m) mark at the global box office.

Ban made the appeal in separate meetings with the President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Liu Yandong, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, where he attended commemorative events in the Chinese capital marking the 70th anniversary of the Second World War.

The limited selection of apps is one of the main challenges facing Samsung's smartwatches. They have been around for longer than the Apple Watch but haven't generated as much interest or sales.

Samsung's newest, the Gear S2, faces competition not just from Apple but also from a variety of manufacturers using Google's Android Wear software. According to IDC, Apple was the No. 2 maker of wearable devices in the April-June quarter, with a 20 percent worldwide market share, behind the Fitbit and its fitness trackers at 24 percent. Samsung was fifth with 3.3 percent.

One of the main projects for the force's Tropic Twilight exercise is the relocation and rebuilding of the fuel depot on Penrhyn.

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully says improving fuel storage will enable better use of the patrol boat Te Kukupa to carry out fisheries surveillance around the islands.

The force's engineers will also upgrade buildings on Manihiki.

The exercise will involve China, the United States, the UK and France and is aimed at testing the force's abilities to provide disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.

The Shanghai Composite Index posted its first gain in six days to close at 3,083.59 points, bouncing back from losses that triggered worldwide selling and wiped nearly 23 percent off its value over the past week.

Wall Street was expected to rise on the open as European markets rose and Asian indexes closed higher.

The slowdown started as a side effect of the Communist Party's plan to steer the world's second-largest economy to a "new normal" of lower, steadier growth. It has turned into a nose dive the party is struggling to reverse.

The party's plans call for keeping economic growth close to 7 percent this year while China shifts from reliance on trade and investment to more self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption.

The benchmark rate for a one-year loan will be cut by 0.25 percentage points to 4.6 percent and the one-year rate for deposits will fall by a similar margin to 1.75 percent, the central bank announced. It also increased the amount of money available for lending by reducing the minimum reserves banks are required to hold by 0.5 percentage points.

The moves had been expected after exports, manufacturing and other economic indicators weakened by larger margins than expected.

Xinhua says no casualties were immediately reported following the blast Saturday night in Shandong province on Saturday night.

The news agency says the explosion triggered a fire and that a dozen fire engines are battling the fire.

The blast follows the Aug. 12 chemical warehouse explosion in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin. At least 121 people were killed in that disaster, while another 54 remain unaccounted for.