CHINA

Amnesty international blasted Beijing for a protracted crackdown on ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, a region in China's far West, in a report issued yesterday.

A study says Toyota leads global companies in total dollars invested in research and development.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon also known as Transformers 3, which began its assault last Tuesday night, smashed its way through box office records by Monday with global gross receipts nearing $400 million, but not yet opened in Japan or China.

Stock index futures were poised for a slightly lower open on Tuesday before factory orders data and after stocks had their best week in two years last week, leaving the market primed for a decline.

A report says Apple has ordered production of 15 million iPhone 5's. The report says the iPhone 5 will have only minor upgrades from the iPhone 4, and that the product will ship in September.

Apple has placed an order for 15 million iPhone 5s with Taiwan-based note-book maker Pegatron Technology which will start shipping them in September 2011.

European services growth slowed in June in the face of sluggish new orders and rising interest rates, giving firms less optimism about the year ahead, business surveys showed on Tuesday.

Global warming temporarily halted over the past decade instead of apparent increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Japan's Fujifilm aims to become the world's fourth largest camera maker by next March and the No. 3 manufacturer two years later, overtaking first rival Samsung and then Nikon, a senior company executive said.

China's local government debt burden may be 3.5 trillion yuan ($540 billion) larger than auditors estimated, putting banks on the hook for deeper losses that could threaten their credit ratings, Moody's said on Tuesday.

Stock index futures rose slightly on Tuesday before factory orders data and after stocks had their best week in two years last week.

Stock index futures were slightly higher on Monday before factory orders data and as traders returned from a long holiday weekend after the S&P 500's extended winning streak last week.

China's local government debt burden may be 3.5 trillion yuan ($540 billion) larger than auditors estimated, putting banks on the hook for deeper losses that could threaten their credit ratings, Moody's said on Tuesday.

A shoe cleaner in China who had not heard from her daughter for the past five years, since she left, was re-united after a stranger tweeted the lady’s picture taken in his iPhone on a micro-blogging site.

Chinese regulators are playing a game of hide and seek with the country's lenders, trying to uncover deals struck with the intention of evading official loan restrictions.

World stocks steadied below a recent 4-1/2 month high on Tuesday while the euro fell as worries about further monetary tightening in China and caution over the euro zone and U.S. economic outlook made investors hesitant.

There haven't been any radical political or administrative changes happening in China, recently. Nor have there been any reports that said China is reconsidering its Internet censorship regulations. The country notorious for jailing bloggers and blocking Web sites, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, is planning to buy a significant chunk of Facebook's stake, according to a BusinessInsider report.

The accounting troubles and short-seller attacks plaguing Chinese companies have spared few industries, though one sector appears to be a common target.

China's top e-commerce group Alibaba Group is preparing to launch a mobile operating system in the third quarter, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Asian stocks steadied near one-month highs on Tuesday as market players took a breather after five consecutive days of gains while the Australian dollar dipped ahead of a policy meeting of the country's central bank where it may signal a dovish stance.

After a lull in activity, hacker group Anonymous roared back to the spotlight with a high profile attack on Apple, breaching the company's systems and posting stolen data.