General

Google has signed a new cooperation deal with leading Chinese web portal, Sina.com, Sina announced today. The giant global internet search provider is locked in a battle for dominance with local search firm Baidu, which controls more than half the Chinese search market.

Vietnam faces near total disconnection from the Internet because thieves are stealing the country's international telecoms cables, says a telecoms executive.

After a gang carted off fiber optic lines earlier this month, the country now relies on a single link to Hong Kong for 90 percent of its international internet and telephone traffic, warned Nguyen Huu Khanh.

A routine update of anti-virus software has disabled tens of thousands of PCs in China, according to local media reports. The faulty update caused Symantec's Norton AntiVirus software to remove critical Windows XP system files, the reports state.

A wave of PC failures swept the country this morning as PC users switched on their PCs and the software took action. Some companies have been so badly hit - with hundreds of failed PCs - that they are unable to function, local reporters said.

Korean internet users are up in arms over a satirical video clip from US humorist Stephen Colbert.

Thailand's government is demanding that YouTube help identify the users who posted insulting videos of the country's king. The demands from Thailand's Communications Minister, quoted in local press, reopen a controversy that has been widely reported as over.

YouTube, a Google subsidiary, earlier agreed to remove four video clips that clearly insulted Thailand's King, in a letter to Thai Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom.