CHINA

Four Rio Tinto executives, including Australian Stern Hu, face charges of stealing commercial secrets in a Shanghai court on Tuesday after admitting to bribes in iron ore negotiations with China.

Google Inc closed its China-based search service and began redirecting Web searchers to an uncensored portal in Hong Kong, drawing harsh comments from Beijing that raised doubts about the company's future in the world's largest Internet market.

China said on Tuesday that Google Inc had violated a written promise and was totally wrong to end censorship of its Chinese-language search portal, signaling a tough line over the Internet dispute.

Google Inc moved its China Internet search service to Hong Kong in a bid to resolve its dispute with Beijing over censored search results while keeping a foot in the world's largest Internet market.

Four Rio Tinto executives on trial in China, including Australian Stern Hu, pleaded guilty to taking bribes, while contesting the amounts, lawyers at the hearing said on Monday.

Several senators have formed a caucus to promote online freedom in Iran, China and other countries as the Obama administration pushes for greater access to an unfettered Internet.

Kimberly-Clark Corp backed its fiscal 2010 profit forecast and said it would spend more to market new products to reignite sales of goods ranging from toilet paper to tampons.

AT&T Inc will start selling Palm Inc's mobile phones in a few months, Palm said on Monday, as it looks to expand distribution and raise consumer awareness of its phones.

Australia's Arrow Energy Ltd agreed to a fresh takeover offer from Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina, raised by six percent to A$3.4 billion ($3.1 billion) for most of its Australian assets.

Rare earths are indeed getting rare. I got wind of it only a few months back when doing a story on Canada Resource Group and their Blue River Project in British Columbia. It's President David Hodge in an interview said that tantalum that is used in cellphone, laptops, digital camerals and several modern industries is in short supply with Western supply totally eliminated.

After gold, Australia now has shifted its focus on huge deposits of newly found natural gas off its North East coast to earn the post of energy superpower. According to Australia's Resources ministry, projects being ramped up to tap huge undersea fields off the country's northwest could quadruple its exports of liquefied natural gas in the next few years.

Since their tumble in early February platinum and palladium prices have been extremely strong. From a low of $1,475/oz on 5 February, platinum gained steadily to hit $1,624/oz by 16 March, a gain of 10% and just shy of the $1,627/oz it fixed at in January. Palladium did even better, rising from a low of $395/oz on 5 February to hit $475/oz by 8 March, 20% up from its low, and beating its January high - indeed it's the highest fix for palladium since the same $475/oz seen on 20 June 2008.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency launched a new broadside against Google Inc on Monday, saying in an angry commentary that the company had reneged on promises to abide by Chinese law.

With speculation swirling that Google Inc will soon announce the closure of its China-based Internet portal, the reaction from some Chinese has been hurry up and leave, or simply: so what?

Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina convinced Arrow Energy to accept an increased $3.1 billion bid, giving resource-hungry China its first bite of Australia's burgeoning coal-seam gas industry.

Three of the four Rio Tinto executives on trial in Shanghai pleaded guilty to taking bribes, including Australian national Stern Hu, a lawyer for one of the accused said on Monday.

When Nicholas Davies joined Brisbane-based Arrow Energy Ltd as chief executive in 2004, he was charged with growing the then junior explorer into one of Australia's top coal seam gas producers by 2010.

Four employees of mining giant Rio Tinto stood trial in China on Monday, while the company's chief executive said in Beijing that Rio remained committed to working with the key Asian customer.

Rio Tinto Chief Executive Tom Albanese said he was respectfully awaiting the outcome of China's trial of four of the company's employees, which began on Monday.

China's yuan could become a reserve currency accounting for at least five percent of global foreign-exchange reserves as early as 2025, central bankers said in an annual global survey.

Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Brian Moynihan is making his first trip to China this week as the U.S. lender pushes to catch up with rivals in the world's fastest-growing economy, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.