CHINA

Intel Corp beat Wall Street's fourth-quarter profit and sales estimates, and forecast higher-than-expected revenue in the current quarter.

Advances by China's military in cyber and anti-satellite warfare technology could challenge the ability of U.S. forces to operate in the Pacific, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday during a visit to Japan.

Retired professor Chen Chongyu and his wife Liu Zhenjuan dreamed of coming back to China from their daughter's home in France, but until last year the couple had nowhere to go.

Stocks edged lower on Thursday, hurt by a slide in drugmaker Merck and as falling commodities prices hit shares of natural resource companies.

The Chinese government is said to be looking to prepare at least 10 million car parking spots for electric vehicles by 2020 in a new comprehensive policy due to be announced soon, a top executive at a local automaker said on Thursday.

China is a money-sucking black hole that wastes resources and chokes the natural flow of the market-driven global economy.

Advances by China's military in cyber and anti-satellite warfare technology could challenge the ability of U.S. forces to operate in the Pacific, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in prepared remarks on Friday during a visit to Japan.

Investors showed appetite for Spain's debt Thursday, pushing borrowing costs up less than expected at its debut debt auction for 2011 and alleviating some concerns about the euro zone's more vulnerable debtor nations.

Gold fell on Thursday, snapping three sessions of gains as safe-haven buying subsided after successful European bond sales and a more positive economic outlook from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in November as exports climbed to the highest level in more than two years, government data showed on Thursday.

China dumped plans to import several million tonnes of expensive corn and South Korea unveiled cuts in import tariffs on some products, underscoring the dilemma over how to tackle rising food prices.

At least 10 asset managers are preparing to launch yuan-denominated funds in Hong Kong to tap robust overseas demand for yuan assets amid expectations of faster yuan appreciation and broader investment channels, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

China is providing a $350 million concessionary loan to build a multi-lane toll road linking Uganda's capital with the country's Entebbe airport, 54 km (34 miles) away, Ugandan officials said on Thursday.

The European Central Bank will face a grilling on its assessment of the euro zone debt crisis and firming price pressures in the bloc after it left interest rates on hold at 1 percent on Thursday.

Chinese banks are plagued by non-performing loans because their own financial system is heavily distorted.

Starbucks Corp , the world's largest coffee chain, unveiled a tie-up on Thursday that could bring its iconic cafes to Asia's third-largest economy, where western-style coffee shops are increasingly popular.

U.S. legislation pressing for a rise in the yuan currency looms as less of a threat for China on the eve of President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington, now that Republicans control one house of Congress.

Chinese police have arrested 96 people for using melamine-tainted milk powder to produce dairy products, state media said on Thursday, the same chemical that killed several babies in a milk powder scandal in 2008.

Google is reloading its guns in China to focus on display advertisements and the booming export sector a year after a blowout with Beijing over censorship and hacking all but ensured its demise in the country.

In a development that may underscore a growing resentment of Asian business acumen on the African continent, authorities in Tanzania recently ordered foreign traders doing business in a key market in the capital city of Dar es Salaam to close up shop and depart the country within thirty days or risk arrest and prosecution.

Few diplomatic rituals are more predictable than U.S. presidents prodding Chinese leaders over China's human rights record.