Hollywood's biggest fashion parade, the red carpet outside the Oscars, began heating up on Sunday afternoon ahead of the world's top film awards where silent movie The Artist is widely seen as the choice for best movie.

Confusion reigned over the status of the Maldivian president on Tuesday after opposition protests boiled over with a police mutiny and some diplomats said he had resigned, but a source close to the president said he was chairing a cabinet meeting.

China on Monday barred its airlines from a European scheme to reduce carbon emissions, hardening its stance a week before a summit at which the European Union will seek Chinese help to ease its debt crisis.

Syrian and Libyan demonstrators hurled rocks, eggs and tomatoes at the Chinese embassy in Tripoli on Monday, after Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution backing an Arab plan urging Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

Vice President Joe Biden warned on Monday that there is no way that China will be able to sustain its current level of economic growth because of what he called its God-awful one-child policy.

The Arab League chief said on Monday that Russia and China had lost diplomatic credit in the Arab world by vetoing a U.N. resolution on Syria and may have sent a message to Damascus that it had a free hand to crack down on protests.

China's Foreign Ministry said Monday global protests sparked by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States were a cause for reflection, but the reflection should be focused on ensuring the world's healthy economic growth.

Video footage of a two-year-old child run over by a van and ignored by passersby in China has ignited public uproar for what some are calling the immorality of modern society.

China is steeling itself for another presidential election in rambunctiously democratic Taiwan, hoping a victory for the ruling Nationalists enables even better ties but also girding for an opposition win that may inflame tensions.

China has launched an intense lobbying effort in Washington to kill legislation that would punish it for its currency system, in the latest display of its more sophisticated approach to influence U.S. policy.

China is gaining the upper hand in its much vaunted friendship with Russia due to Beijing's shift away from relying on Moscow for advanced weapons and deep problems with energy cooperation, a report released on Monday said.

Two subway trains collided in Shanghai on Tuesday injuring more than 270 passengers, 20 critically, prompting public anger two months after a crash between two high-speed trains and renewing concerns about China's aggressive rail building plans.

The local government in central China's Jiangxi province will tighten curbs on energy-guzzlers by charging higher electricity prices, amid a national drive for energy-saving and energy efficiency in the world's top energy consuming country.

Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa said on Tuesday it has signed a deal to sell and install 200 megawatts of wind turbines for China's Huadian New Energy Development by 2012.

A fire on Tuesday at a plant belonging to Apple components maker Foxconn Group in Shandong, eastern China has been put out and there were no casualties or impact on operations, a spokesman for group listed entity Hon Hai said.

Chinese social networking site Renren Inc said it would acquire online video sharing site 56.com for $80 million.

China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co Ltd has agreed to buy two coal companies from Australia's Wesfarmers Ltd for A$296.8 million ($288.5 million), Yanzhou Coal said in a statement on Tuesday.

A fire at a plant belonging to Apple Inc supplier Foxconn Group in Shandong, eastern China, has been extinguished without casualties and there will be no impact on operations, said a spokesman for group's listed entity Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd .

Kobe Steel Ltd , Japan's No.4 steelmaker, said on Tuesday it was in talks with China's Anshan Iron and Steel Group to jointly build a plant for high-strength automotive steel sheets in China, in a bid to tap growing demand for lighter vehicles there.

Fletcher Building Limited today announced that it will establish a new laminates plant to be built in China by its Formica business.