NEW YORK (Reuters) - Soon, the black-uniformed waiters wheeling trolleys of food will disappear from the halls of the Hilton Midtown. Will visitors to New York City's largest hotel mind having to leave their rooms for sustenance?

For some, a hotel without room service made no sense.

"You're on holiday, you're away, you like being waited on," said Claire Avery, a prison clerk from New South Wales, Australia, who was staying at the Hilton with her boyfriend. "Sometimes you don't even have to move."

If she returns later in the summer, she will have to move at least as far as the lobby, where the hotel is building a self-service food market to replace room service.

The New York Hilton Midtown, a 2,000-room hotel in Manhattan's commercial district filled with business travelers, tourists and conference-goers, confirmed this week that it would end room service. A Hilton spokesman, Mark Ricci, said up to 55 employees could lose their jobs.

Hilton officials said the move - which is highly unusual for a full-service hotel - was prompted by cutbacks in spending by business travelers, many of whom face tight expense-account rules, and the changing tastes of leisure travelers, who already pay rates at the Hilton that start at about $240 per night before taxes, going up to more than twice that.

The change appealed to Aakriti Gupta, a recent college graduate from New Delhi visiting New York with her mother, who pointed out that the idea of room service doesn't always match the reality.

"The existing room service isn't great," she said. "If you ordered it once, I don't think you would order it again. We ordered a pizza that was $55." She added, unhappily, that it was delivered in a box.

Ricci said pizza was listed on the Hilton's room-service menu for $24, with $3 for each topping, but could not give the final cost once service charges, an in-room dining charge and taxes were added.

WALKING OUT THE DOOR

Beth Scott, vice president of restaurant concepts at Hilton Worldwide Inc, conceded that room-service prices were high, as they tend to be at most hotels, in part because providing the service 24 hours a day is labor-intensive. The cost is magnified in New York City, where a strong union has secured higher wages for hotel employees compared to other hospitality industry workers and building cleaners.

As a result, Scott said in an interview, guests have been heading out to diners and food carts in the neighborhood.

"We were watching guests walk out the door to get those things at a much more reasonable price," she said. "I'm sure we got more complaints about the price of bringing the hamburger up to the room than we will for not bringing it up to the room at all."

The new lobby food outlet, called Herb n' Kitchen, will be cheaper and will allow guests to get their food more quickly, she said.

The decline in room service is not confined to the Hilton. Revenue from room service declined from 1.3 percent of total hotel revenue in 2011 to 1.2 percent last year, according to an annual survey of U.S. hotels by PKF Hospitality.

As hotel occupancy rates have returned to pre-recession levels, hotels have been able to charge more for rooms, forcing business travelers to save elsewhere, which can include skipping room service, said Robert Mandelbaum, a PKF analyst.

The reasons are not only economic, he added. Guests are more inclined to roam beyond their rooms, with executives increasingly taking their laptops to coffee shops to work rather than spreading out papers on their hotel room desk.

"Being caged in your room waiting an hour for a tray to arrive, it's just not what people do," Mandelbaum said.

PAPER BAGS AND A KNOCK

Ian Schrager, who helped pioneer the idea of boutique hotels, said people's idea of luxury had changed, with a greater emphasis on value than on appearances.

"They don't care about getting coffee served in the finest bone china and sterling silver with waiters with white gloves on," he said, describing the classic idea of room service as "dysfunctional and antiquated."

At the PUBLIC hotel in Chicago, which Schrager opened in 2011, food by the French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is delivered unceremoniously in brown paper bags, left outside guests' doors with a knock.

The waiters, trolleys and silver cloches are not likely to disappear entirely, however, even from the Hilton-owned Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Luxury hotels say their guests expect such service and are willing to pay a premium for fine food, flowers, candles and tablecloths in their room.

It would be virtually impossible for a hotel to hang on to a high rating in the influential AAA hotel guide if it ditched room service, said AAA spokeswoman Heather Hunter.

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts (which runs the Plaza in New York), Marriott International Inc and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group all said they had no plans to discontinue room service at their full-service hotels.

But Scott, the Hilton vice president, said the company may expand the idea elsewhere if it works in New York, and believes competitors were studying the move.

"It's not a secret guest habits have changed these days, it's not like we've figured out something that nobody else knows," she said. "We've just decided to take action."

(Editing by Scott Malone and Douglas Royalty)

Francis urged prayers for "beloved Syria" as he spoke from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square on Sunday to a crowd below. He lamented that the war there has stricken a defenseless people aspiring to peace.

Francis decried the "plague of kidnappings." Both rebels and pro-regime forces have abducted political foes, members of rival sects and others, including journalists, to settle scores or for ransom.

Among those snatched were two Orthodox bishops who were abducted in April.

The pope assured families of hostages of his prayers.

Francis expressed strong concern that the conflict has dragged on for more than two years.

He continued to downplay the furor over remarks first reported by The Associated Press jabbing Roman Catholics, Notre Dame and the Southeastern Conference, comments taken seriously enough by university trustees that they threatened in March to fire him for further verbal transgressions.

If anything, the remarks helped Gee reflect on what he wanted to do next, he said at a morning news conference.

"It played that role but not a defining role in terms of my own conversation with myself," Gee said.

Gee left that news conference for a closed-door meeting with board trustees to discuss a long-term university plan. He said that upcoming project is another reason he wants to step down now rather than later. He couldn't say when asked if he would have made a different decision had the remarks, recorded in December, not been made public last week.

Gee explained away the one-month notice he gave Tuesday by citing a desire not to stay on any longer than he has to.

"I'm not a victory lap guy," Gee said Wednesday. "The last thing I want to do is be queen for a day. I want to move on. I want the university to move on."

Trustee chairman Robert Schottenstein denied Gee had been forced out.

In Dec. 5 comments to the university Athletic Council, Gee jokingly referred to "those damn Catholics" at Notre Dame and poked fun at the academic quality of other schools. He apologized when the comments were disclosed, saying they were "a poor attempt at humor and entirely inappropriate."

Ohio State at the time called the comments unacceptable and said it had placed Gee on a remediation plan to change his behavior.

It was the latest in a string of remarks Gee has made in recent years that put him in hot water, though the first that brought such a strong warning from trustees. He apologized last year for likening the difficulties of coordinating various university divisions to the Polish Army.

In 2011, Gee got egg on his face for saying at a news conference that rather than firing his embattled football coach he was worried that the coach "doesn't dismiss me."

In 2010, he apologized for criticizing other big-time football programs for having a schedule equivalent to playing "the Little Sisters of the Poor."

Gee, 69, wearing one of his trademark bowties, said he was finding it more and more difficult to do his job the way he wants, which is like a man half his age.

"I want to run it in the way that I can run full tilt," said Gee, how says he's in good health. "And so I don't ever want to ever lose a step."

Gee, a Mormon, said the opportunity to hold his twin granddaughters in his arms on a recent cruise gave him pause.

"I'm sitting on the deck of the ship, and I'm rocking these little girls, and I'm thinking this is the first time I've ever rocked a child for 33 years," said Gee, who in a tweet later in the morning said life "is all about perspective" and included a picture of his granddaughters.

Gee also said he and his "significant other" in California, whom he didn't identify, were having a difficult time figuring out how "we're going to make this work."

Gee likely will stay and teach at the law school and help raise money.

Ohio State, one of the biggest universities in the nation, with 65,000 students, has named provost Joseph Alutto as interim president.

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have been forced to halt a study involving a potential vaccine for HIV, after finding that it was ineffective.regarding the decision on Thursday, the NIH stated that the vaccine also proved ineffective at reducing the amount of HIV found in the blood of those already infected.

The study, designated HVTN 505, had been going on for almost four years, and involved some 2,504 volunteers in 19 different cities. All of the participants were either homosexual men or transgender men who only have sex with other men.

Here is some of the key information that emerged on Thursday regarding the NIH's decision to halt its study involving this particular HIV vaccine.

* The study was being conducted through the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), which is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

* The number of volunteers given the actual vaccine versus those that were given a placebo were nearly equal, with 1,250 participants given the vaccine and 1,244 given the placebo.

* According to the NIH statement, structures from all three subtypes of HIV were included in the vaccine. Unlike some vaccinations designed to protect from other diseases, this HIV vaccine did not contain either live or weakened strains of HIV, so could not cause the disease itself.

* The vaccine trial was reportedly halted after an independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) that reviewed the study recommended it.

* The news of the trial's failure to produce an effective HIV vaccine disappointed both those involved with the study and outside organizations. Mitchell Warren, who is the executive director for AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Protection, issued a statement to the media on Thursday, in which he said that "the trial has provided a clear, swift answer about a specific vaccine strategy." Warren expressed hope for future developments, however, noting that "it's not the answer we hoped for, but the search doesn't end here,"

*the NIH will continue to monitor the health of study participants, in order to follow up on the initial research data.

* Several other vaccine trials are either already in progress or planned. One of the most promising may involve the follow-up on the results of a 2009 study in Thailand, that produced results strong enough to encourage researchers that it may be possible to find a vaccine to protect people against HIV infection in the near future.

This Memorial Day weekend, the hulking metal come-ons are once again glinting and shimmering at night.

The Neon Museum, where Sin City's most iconic signs go to retire, has begun aiming more than 100 multicolored spotlights on its outdoor collection of 150 signs. It's also extending hours for nighttime tours, and a handful of signs have been fully restored with new bulbs.

Since October, visitors have been able to meander past the Silver Slipper, Aladdin's lamp, the Stardust marquee and dozens of other signs saved from the wrecking ball. But the museum closed at 5:30 p.m., meaning that tourists had to squint through the desert sun to glimpse the old guardians of this nighttime city.

For the first time Friday, visitors were able to behold the fully restored signs in all their luminescent glory. The dozens of other markers were bathed in custom-designed spotlights, like true Vegas showgirls.

"The skyline of Las Vegas is a nighttime skyline," said executive director Danielle Kelly, moments before the first afterhours tour came through.

"We stand among the architecture of this city. The notable architecture of this city is its signage. And their illumination is when they came alive," Kelly said.

In a town known for detonating buildings that are beyond their prime, Las Vegas' Neon Museum stands apart in its zeal for salvaging the blinking, glowing memories of the past.

Kelly says time has transformed the signs from commercial emissaries into objects of art.

The hour-long guided tours bend through the artfully cluttered 1.5-acre lot. The excursion offers an alternative to the mega-mall homogeny along the desert metropolis' revamped main drag.

Worn by the beating sun and twisted by desert winds, most of the marquees have lost their flash, some of their bulbs and much of their paint. They tilt toward each other like tombstones in an ancient cemetery. But taken together, they tell a story about the town's glitziest days.

There's the nouveau graveyard's oldest sign: a green and white 1930s relic that marked a restaurant where Hoover Dam construction workers bought fried chicken and bootleg whiskey.

One of the signs with working bulbs a vintage arrow pointing lovebirds to "Marriage Information" alludes to the town's role as the nation's elopement, and divorce, capital.

And the giant marquee that once sat astride the Stardust casino featuring a space-age, deep-red font and cascade of stylized diamonds recalls Nevada's embrace of its role as a test site for nuclear weapons

While only four of the kitschy relics are illuminated, the spotlights play up each sign's attributes and create a feel of pulsating energy.

On Friday, the flashing red lights and blue and purple shadows along with the errant stray cat gave the attraction the surreal, slightly creepy feel of a shuttered theme park.

The museum plans to turn on a few more signs, but facilities director Sam Reza said full wattage would be too dazzling.

"The purpose of the museum is never to have all of the signs fully illumined. We wanted to keep them in the state that they were taken down. To have all of these signs fully lighted up would be overwhelming," she said.

Funding is also a factor; it can cost $100,000 to bring back a single sign.

Art lovers founded the museum in 1996 in a sandy lot outside downtown Las Vegas a few miles north of the Strip as a way to rescue old signs when buildings were demolished or remodeled.

In 2012, curators had the bright idea to open it to the public and began working on a plan to light up the night once again.

Casino bosses began abandoning curlicues of neon in the desert several decades ago, beginning with Steve Wynn's remodel of the Golden Nugget.

Today, major hotel-casinos are built to advertise themselves. The facades and exterior entertainment do the heavy lifting, from the glossy, brown obelisk that is the Wynn Las Vegas, to the fountains that dance outside the Bellagio, to the condensed New York City skyline that frames New York New York.

When signs do crop up, neon has all but surrendered to computerized LED signs.

But most visitors still feel a connection to the town's glittery glory. Most anyone can visualize Vegas Vic, with his checked shirt, perpetually lit cigarette and extended thumb, in their mind's eye.

Sandra Chervinsky, who snapped dozens of pictures during the Neon Museum's inaugural twilight tour, demonstrated her love of vintage Vegas signage by getting full-color tattoo of the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign on her calf.

"When I saw the night tours, I was like, 'I got to do it,'" said Chervinsky, of Montreal. "The light is so perfect, and you're surrounded by all these different eras."

The new tours will run every half hour through 10 p.m., leaving visitors enough time to catch a late show or hit up one of the town's 24-hour bars before heading hotelward.

With the changes and expanded tour capacity, the museum hopes to welcome more than 50,000 visitors this year.

The lot can feel a bit macabre in this youth and novelty-obsessed town, but Kelly said the museum's latest iteration shows that the signs have become key players in a new kind of escapist vision.

"It's not a graveyard," Kelly said. "The signs haven't died. They're just in a new space. And they perform a new function. It's still a fantasy they're selling: the idea of a place."

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Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford lost two more staff members on Thursday, two weeks after allegations first surfaced that the leader of Canada's largest city was caught smoking crack cocaine on camera, something he has strongly denied.

Security ushered policy advisor Brian Johnston out of city hall around midday on Thursday, and he told reporters he had resigned. Kia Nejatian, the mayor's executive assistant, also left his job, the city confirmed in a statement sent to local media.

The 44-year-old mayor, who hails from a conservative political family and was elected to lead Toronto in 2010, has lost five staffers in seven days, including his chief of staff, who was fired, and his press secretary.

A defiant Ford told a crush of reporters gathered outside his office that "everything is going fine," said he was bringing in new staff and vowed to weather the political storm.

"I'm not stepping aside," Ford said. "I'm running in the next election, and if the great people of this city want to go in a different direction that's what their prerogative is, but I guarantee, my name will be on the ballot."

He repeatedly refused to answer questions on Thursday about the alleged video, shrugging them off with a refrain of "anything else?"

U.S. media outlet Gawker and the Toronto Star both reported on May 16 that their reporters had seen a cellphone video that appears to show Ford using crack cocaine. Ford has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Reuters cannot confirm the existence of the video or its content.

Separately, Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters that the Canadian province's government was monitoring the situation and could get involved, if appropriate.

"As a citizen and as premier of the province, I'm concerned that things are not as they should be at city hall," she said. "It's hard to imagine that it could be business as usual."

The comments, unusual coming from a sitting provincial leader, prompted a sharp response from Ford's older brother, who is a Toronto city councilor.

"Get your house in order before you have the nerve to say anything about the mayor," Doug Ford told reporters at city hall. "We have this city in great financial shape. It's in better shape than what we inherited."

Rob Ford has sparred with Wynne's office over how to fund a massive regional transit expansion, stating that a sales tax hike and gas levy would hurt "hardworking families" in Ontario.

Wynne leads a Liberal minority government that requires some opposition support to pass legislation.

Toronto's "weak mayor" political system already limits the executive's influence and puts more power in the hands of the city council.

Mayor Ford has enjoyed a hard core of support from a segment of Toronto voters, particularly in the suburbs, who lifted him to power on a platform of controlling spending and cutting taxes, along the lines of the populist Tea Party movement in the United States.

(Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Paul Simao)

Critics said the dark mysteries, mind-bending codes and history-laced tourism in "Inferno" will thrill Brown devotees, but panned the U.S. author for passages they said were more suited to a Hollywood film script than a novel.

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon returns in this latest sequel to the blockbuster book and film franchise to follow a trail of clues about 14th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri across Florence, Venice and Istanbul in a race to save the world from a deadly artificial plague.

New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin said the novel has a shaky opening that appears to put Brown's "brainiac franchise" in trouble, but recovers swiftly.

"To the great relief of anyone who enjoys him, Mr. Brown winds up not only laying a breadcrumb trail of clues about Dante (this is "Inferno," after all) but also playing games with time, gender, identity, famous tourist attractions and futuristic medicine," she wrote.

Sales of the book reached the highest level of customer pre-orders at retailer Waterstones since the release of Harry Potter author JK Rowling's adult fiction "The Casual Vacancy" last year.

The Independent newspaper's Boyd Tonkin called the novel "clunky but clever" in a review that asks whether Brown can make a go of one of the oldest plots in fiction - mad scientist threatens world with doom machine.

"Can Brown re-engineer these over-familiar devices of outbreak, pestilence and contagion into a viable organism? However clunkily, he can," Tonkin writes.

But Financial Times reviewer AN Wilson panned "Inferno" as a "nonsensical story" loaded with "scientific gobbledygook" and pointing out Brown's repetitive reliance on the fame of every historical site Langdon comes across.

"The prof and his doctor race past 'Florence's famed Cathedral', and Vasari's 'famed Studiolo', not forgetting the 'world-famous Uffizi Gallery'," Wilson wrote.

"Inferno reads less like a novel than a 'treatment' for a thriller film."

Back in America, USA Today's Brian Truitt offers Brown's novel three and a half stars out of four in a review that calls the book "one hell of a good read".

"Brown has a definite formula in place for putting Langdon through his paces, but watching him go through hell is about as close as a book can come to a summertime cinematic blockbuster," Truitt wrote.

Brown's religion-themed mystery novel "The Da Vinci Code," was published in 2003 and was made into a hit film starring Tom Hanks. It spent more than a year at the top the New York Times bestseller list.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang; Writing by Paul Casciato; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

But like all sources of energy, wind power comes at a cost one that's too often borne by eagles, hawks, falcons, owls and other birds.

Wind turbines kill more than 573,000 birds each year in the United States, according to , including federally protected species like bald eagles and golden eagles. []

Even bats are falling victim to wind-turbine blades: The Pennsylvania Game Commission estimates that more than 10,000 bats are killed in the state each year by wind turbines, thereports.

Of course, birds die from other causes, too: Structures like glass-walled office buildings and utility towers, vehicular collisions and carnivorous animals (including domestic cats) kill far more birds each year than wind turbines do.

Though it can appear as though theyre turning at a slow, almost relaxed pace, wind-turbine blades actually move very rapidly: The outer tips of some turbines' blades can reach speeds of 179 mph (288 kilometers per hour) and can easily slice off an eagle's wing.

And when hawks, falcons and eagles are flying, they're usually looking down at the ground for prey, not glancing up to watch for a knifelike blade whipping down on them from above.

"There is nothing in the evolution of eagles that would come near to describing a wind turbine," Grainger Hunt, a raptor specialist with the Peregrine Fund, told the AP. "There has never been an opportunity to adapt to that sort of threat."

Compounding the problem is the design of some wind turbines: The lattice work found on older models makes an ideal perch for larger birds of prey, so they're attracted to the same spires that are also a death trap.

Wind-farm siting is another factor. Many wind farms, like the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in northern California, were constructed in the middle of important migratory routes and are surrounded by prime raptor habitat.

Altamont Pass has come under fire for being one of the deadliest wind farms in the world. One study found almost 10,000 birds die each year beneath the wind-turbine blades at Altamont, and most of them are federally protected raptors or are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Journal reports.

As the number of maimed and dead birds grows, several solutions have been proposed to stem the grisly mutilations of birds and bats occurring at wind farms. Siting wind turbines in areas with lower bird populations is one option.

And newer turbine designs, such as those without lattice frames and with vertical-axis rotors, can reduce the deadly impact that wind turbines have on bird populations worldwide.

It's working at Altamont: Modernizing older turbines and placing them away from certain corridors has reduced the death rate for some bird species by 50 percent, according to .

Follow Marc Lallanilla onand . Follow us ,& . Original article on .

Plouffe was injured in the 10th inning of Tuesday night's 5-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

He slammed into Uggla's leg sliding into second base and remained down for a few minutes before walking slowly to the dugout, holding his head.

During an examination for concussion-related symptoms, Plouffe showed sensitivity to light. He said he was "feeling better" a day later, but Twins weren't taking any chances.

"He took a good shot in the head. That's what this rule is for, to protect the player," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "Give him a little bit of a break here and do what's right. He was a little woozy and that's why there was concern."

The Twins will wait a couple of days before giving Plouffe a concussion impact test. In the meantime, Minnesota purchased the contract of Chris Colabello from Triple-A Rochester and started him in right field for Wednesday's series finale against the Braves. Eduardo Escobar started at third base.

In 2012, Plouffe had a breakout season with 24 homers and 55 RBIs. This year, the 26-year-old is hitting .254 with four homers and 17 RBIs.

The 30-year-old Colabello leads the International League in home runs (12) and slugging percentage (.659). He's second in RBIs (39) and third in average (.358).

"He's been hitting it, absolutely hitting it out there," Gardenhire said. "We'll see what he's got. A left-hander on the mound (Atlanta's Paul Maholm), a good time for a right-hander to be out there. That's what we brought him up here for, to be a right-handed bat. Go get 'em."

Maybe Colabello can bolster an anemic offense. The Twins have scored just 19 runs during a season-high seven-game losing streak.

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Associated Press freelance writer Amy Jinkner-Lloyd contributed to this report.

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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twtter.com/pnewberry1963

Following a run of upbeat U.S. economic news, largely related to housing and jobs, there had been talk in the markets that the Fed may soon put a brake on its super-easy monetary policy, which has boosted liquidity in financial markets over the past few years.

The Fed is currently making $85 billion in bond purchases every month to encourage lending and spur the U.S. economic recovery. Though a number of economic indicators have improved, the U.S. economy isn't posting historically high growth rates and unemployment is relatively high above 7 percent despite consistent falls in recent months.

Though Bernanke said that keeping interest rates low for a long time can unbalance the financial system, he warned that a change in policy now would "carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery and causing inflation to fall further."

Following his comments to lawmakers in Congress, European and U.S. stock markets pushed sharply higher while the dollar lost some of its shine.

"The upshot for equities intraday is the next green light," said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak & Co. "Investors have driven the market much higher in 2013 and for want of a better catalyst will use the excuse of a persistent Fed stance to buy again."

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares, which closed Tuesday at its highest level since late 1999, ended Wednesday up another 0.5 percent at 6,840, while Germany's DAX rose 0.6 percent to 8,523. The CAC-40 in France was 0.3 percent higher at 4,047.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.6 percent at 15,482 while the broader S&P 500 index rose 0.6 percent to 1,678.

One aspect of the monetary stimulus, which has been replicated by a number of other central banks around the world, including most recently the Bank of Japan, has been to send stock indexes flying despite a patchy recovery from recession in many parts of the world.

Over the past few weeks, a number of the world's main markets, such as the Dow Jones and Germany's DAX have recorded a series of all-time highs, while others such as Japan's Nikkei have hit multi-year highs.

In the currency markets, dollar kept rising after an initial drop. The euro was trading 0.5 percent lower at $1.2853. The dollar was 1.2 percent higher against the Japanese yen, at 103.63 yen, the highest since October 2008.

Earlier in Asia, stocks rebounded on the back of some similarly dovish comments from the Fed's James Bullard on Tuesday.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 1.6 percent to 15,627.26, its highest close in more than five years. The Bank of Japan concluded a two-day policy meeting without any changes to its aggressive monetary easing stance, as expected, and said the world's third-largest economy is showing signs of picking up.

South Korea's Kospi rose 0.6 percent to 1,993.83 while mainland Chinese shares ended a five-day winning streak, with the Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.1 percent to 2,302.40. The smaller Shenzhen Composite Index lost 0.9 percent to 1,021.40. Hong Kong's Hang Seng, where trading was suspended in the morning due to bad weather, fell 0.5 percent to 23,261.08.

Oil prices remained subdued though, with the benchmark New York rate down $1.13 at $95.06 a barrel.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.