HISTORY MAKER: Chinese tennis ace Li Na holds the runner-up plate at the awards ceremony of the Australia Open in Melbourne on January 29. Although she lost to Belgium's Kim Clijsters in the title match, Li is the first Chinese to advance to a Grand Slam singles final (MENG YONGMIN)

Warriors to Land

Eighteen life-sized Chinese terracotta warriors, as well as 232 other artifacts, will be on display at an exhibition titled "The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army" in Canada this summer.

The exhibition will start in Toronto and then travel to Montreal, Calgary, ending in Victoria.

The exhibition showcases one of the most significant archaeological finds in world history: the 1974 discovery of almost 2,000 full-sized terracotta warriors and horses in the underground mausoleum of China's first emperor, Shihuang of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.). The pottery figures were unearthed from three 2,200-year-old pits near Xi'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Nearly 90 percent of the featured objects had never traveled outside China before, said Chen Shen, Senior Curator of the East Asian Archaeology Unit of the Royal Museum of Ontario in Toronto.

Lingering Drought

Water supplies to nearly 1 million people would dry up if a drought in east China's Shandong Province lasts until the end of March, disaster prevention officials warned on January 27, as much of China's northern region continued to experience less than average rainfall.

The drought is the worst in six decades, said Yang Zhendong, Director of the Shandong Provincial Flood and Drought Control Office.

Little rain had fallen in the province for four consecutive months, with only 12 mm of accumulated precipitation since September 23, about 15 percent the normal level, Yang said.

Official surveys found some 3.2 million people across the province were facing a water shortage. Yang said the drought mostly affected rural residents in mountainous areas.

The government has sent workers to drill wells in those regions and dispatched fire engines to deliver water to affected residents.