China's president meets astronauts

Chinese President Hu Jintao met Friday with astronauts, scientists and engineers involved in the country's manned space docking mission, officials said. Hu met the three astronauts from the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft who returned from a 13-day mission June 29 after manually docking the spacecraft with the Tiangong-1 space lab module, China's official Xinhua news agency reported. He expressed his "greetings and congratulations" to the astronauts and all science and technology workers, officials and employees as well as army officers who participated in the mission, Xinhua reported. Some Western experts see the docking of the spacecraft with the laboratory as a step toward China possibly building a space station similar to the International Space Station. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and other senior leaders and legislators also attended the meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xinhua reported.