CHINA

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver early Thursday a speech on internet freedom following the cyber attacks on Google in China.

China easily beat its 2009 growth target after a blistering fourth quarter performance that set the stage for further monetary tightening and put it on course to overtake Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.

U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday ahead of quarterly results from Goldman Sachs Group

Starbucks Corp said it struck a deal with Swedish-Danish dairy products cooperative Arla Foods to foray into the European ready-to-drink coffee market.

Beijing needs to tighten its monetary policy to head off asset bubbles, leading economist Nouriel Roubini said on Thursday.

Oil fell toward $77 a barrel on Thursday as worries that China will take more measures to temper its booming economy overshadowed its return to double-digit growth for the first time since 2008.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Thursday, ahead of a slew of earnings news, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.04 percent, the Dow Jones industrial average 0.1 percent lower and the Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.2 percent.

Developed and emerging equity markets diverged on Thursday with the latter falling on worries China will take more measures to temper growth after reporting its fastest quarterly growth in two years.

Sony Ericsson, a cellphone joint venture between Sony Corp and Ericsson, has no plans to delay the launch of a phone that runs Google Inc's Android operating system in China, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

China says its Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 expanded by 8.7% and the fourth quarter expanded 10.7% that form a powerful springboard for it to jump over Japan and become the world's second-largest economy.

Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday as investors worried that China would take more measures to temper growth after reporting its fastest quarterly growth in two years.

Sony Ericsson, a cellphone joint venture between Sony Corp and Ericsson, has no plans to delay the launch of a phone that runs Google Inc's Android operating system in China, the company's chief executive said on Thursday.

China's economy finished 2009 with a flourish as a 10.7 percent year-on-year increase in fourth-quarter GDP took full-year growth to 8.7 percent, easily surpassing Beijing's 8 percent target.

Google Inc's threat to exit China could create a big headache for its cellphone partners, especially Motorola Inc, which has bet its turnaround on Google's mobile software and China.

Google Inc's threat to quit China over cyber attacks and censorship highlights U.S. fears that a more powerful Beijing is tapping government and corporate computer networks to steal secrets and to prepare for potential conflicts.

Microsoft Corp said it will issue a patch to fix the old version of its Internet Explorer browser that allowed recent attacks on Google Inc's network in China.

China's top search engine, Baidu Inc, sued its U.S.-based domain name service provider Register.com Inc on Wednesday after a cyber attack interrupted its web services last week.

Global oil prices remained below $78 a barrel in Asian trade Thursday as the market awaits a crucial energy report from the US. Light sweet crude for March delivery was seen trading at $77.61 a barrel at 11.30 a.m while Brent crude was at $76.10 a barrel at the same time.

China's economy finished 2009 with a flourish as a 10.7 percent year-on-year increase in fourth-quarter GDP took full-year growth to 8.7 percent, easily surpassing Beijing's 8 percent target.

China easily beat its 2009 growth target after a blistering performance in the fourth quarter that forms a powerful springboard for it to jump over Japan this year to become the world's second-largest economy.

China easily beat its 2009 growth target after a blistering performance in the fourth quarter that forms a powerful springboard for it to jump over Japan this year to become the world's second-largest economy.