CHINA

Israel received about 4,600 asylum applications from Africans last year, according to the U.S. State Department. About 3,700 were rejected, while only one was approved. The others are pending.

The rupee weakened on Friday on worsening global risk sentiment, but posted its first weekly gain against the dollar in more than two months as the local currency recovers from oversold conditions.

Asian stock markets reported their first weekly gains in six weeks amid hopes that major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, might act to tackle deteriorating global economic conditions.

Asian markets rose this week amid hopes that policy makers would take concrete measures to tackle the financial crisis and regain the economic growth momentum.

China's inflation cooled in May, giving Beijing more wiggle room to loosen policy and stimulate growth. Its consumer price index rose by 3 percent, and its producer price index fell by 1.4 percent.

African governments -- and international animal-rights organizations -- contend the Chinese luxury consumer's appetite for ivory is driving a new wave of illegal killing of one of their continent's most iconic animals.

Adam Opel GmbH, an aging European subsidiary of the General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM), is hoping Chinese sales will be a panacea for miserable performance in the European market.

As we have long expected, China is beginning to decelerate.

Lower U.S. demand for crude oil and petroleum products in April helped shrink the nation's balance-of-trade deficit from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday, but the trade deficit with China worsened.

A deluge of data is due over the weekend and next week, including almost all of China's key barometers of economic health. The worsening European debt crisis is casting a pall over everything, and has slowed down growth in the world's economic powerhouse.

Lower U.S. demand for crude oil and petroleum products in April helped shrink the nation's balance-of-trade deficit from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday, but the trade deficit with China worsened.

Thousands of software and application engineers have already sold out next week?s developers conference mounted by Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the world's most valuable technology company. Here are four key highlights.

Without a stronger effort by the central banks -- in the form of a coordinated quantitative easing measure to correct the ailing European banking system -- the global economy (at best) will only limb along.

The world's economies have fallen to their weakest level since the recession officially ended in 2009. German and U.S. bonds actually charge buyers interest rather than pay buyers interest. The euro zone's survival appears at genuine risk and China's red-hot economy, the second-biggest in the world, is not so red hot any more.

Russia and China remain opposed to any external intervention efforts int Syria by foreign countries, even as UN observers come under fire during their investigations of a civilian massacre.

No, it wasn't Hugh Jackman in costume or a figment of his imagination. A hiker in California named David Messa snapped pictures of a wolverine, the fourth ever to be caught on film, while on a hiking trip in the Sierras. View the slideshow to see photos of the wolverine sighting from 2008, the third sighting in the Tahoe National Forest.

China is urging Iran to be flexible and pragmatic during its nuclear talks with six world powers, including China, next month.

Among the companies whose shares are moving in pre-market trading Friday are: Molina Healthcare, China TransInfo Technology, Strategic Hotels, France Telecom, Barrick Gold, Rio Tinto, Randgold Resources, Alcoa and Bank of America Corp.

Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng's brother has said that local authorities destroyed evidence of abuse in his village, coinciding with reports that government surveillance, which turned the village into a prison to keep the activist under house arrest for two years, has ended.

U.S. military strategy of continued drone strikes to fight the insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan once again stood accused of violating international law, this time by the U.N.'s human rights chief, Navi Pillay, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Asian markets fell Friday as investors were disappointed with U.S. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's lack of a commitment to additional monetary easing measures in his congressional testimony on the country's economic outlook.