CHINA

German pharmaceuticals and chemical giant Bayer AG said it plans to invest 1-billion euros ($1.3-billion) in China in efforts to more than double sales in the country by 2015, as part of the company’s greater push into the Asia-Pacific region.

Having just touched an all-time high in price, demand for copper is expected to be very strong in the coming years, driven primarily by China’s insatiable hunger for commodities of all kinds to support its relentless program of mass urbanization.

IBTimes speaks to Siemens CEO Peter Löscher about the future of renewable energy, the megatrends affecting it, and how his company is positioning itself in this industry.

China attacked the U.S. congressional resolution on convicted Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, and urged U.S. policymakers to change arrogant and rude attitude. The country's foreign ministry maintained that Liu, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, was not arrested over his calls for democracy, but for the reason that he tried to destabilize the state. Meanwhile, the Nobel committee announced that as many as 18 countries have joined China in the boycott of the Oslo event.

China on Thursday expressed its support for Russia’s bid to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

For the first time, a private company has successfully launched a spacecraft to orbit and returned it to Earth.

Standard Chartered <2888.HK> said costs are rising quickly as it fights to hire and retain staff in its hot Asian markets, taking the gloss off record income and profits.

Despite a very strong jobs data early Thursday, the Austalian dollar looks less energized for a rally above Tuesday's high of 0.9964 to 1.0001, to complete the 'right shoulder' of a 'head and shoulders' pattern with 'head' at 1.0181 formed on November 5.

Toyota Tsusho Corp, the trading company part-owned by Toyota Motor Corp will build a rare earth processing plant in India to secure supply sources outside China.

Another 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

With emerging economic powerhouse China snapping at its heels, Japan on Thursday said it still remained the second-largest economy in the world, and raised its third quarter gross domestic product growth to 4.5 percent on an annual basis.

Edward Chow remembers the nervous days of the early 1990s in Hong Kong, when tens of thousands of people left the then-British colony, fearful of what would happen when Chinese rule returned.

World oil demand is likely to exceed the previous all-time high reached in 2007, mainly driven by huge demand from the Asian countries, a report said on Wednesday.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.3 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.3 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.2 percent. at 1051 GMT.

Another 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

The government of South Korea is trying to drum up foreign direct investments through free economic zones (FEZ), or areas that offer financial incentives for foreign investments.

In a conference on Wednesday in mid-town Manhattan, The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) presented reasons why South Korea makes for an attractive investment candidate for foreigners.

The shares of two Chinese companies considered that nation's YouTube and Amazon.com soared in their U.S. debuts on Wednesday as investors bet they could become leaders in a still-nascent market.

Yum Brands Inc said China would surpass the United States as the fast-food restaurant operator's top profit generator this year, and the Chinese market's potential is still largely untapped.

Domestic monetary policy, monetary policy abroad, wages, and the cost of essential commodities all point to higher inflation in China, according to virtually every single school of economic thought.

Steady economic improvement should fuel U.S. stock gains through 2011, according to a Reuters poll of investors and strategists, but international concerns could limit gains in the second half of the year.