CHINA

Japan's Nikkei fell for a ninth straight day on Monday as concerns about company earnings outlooks weighed on Asian stocks, while oil languished near a six-week low as faith in a rapid economic recovery faded.

Oil prices steadied at just above $60 a barrel on Monday, pausing from last week's losses, amid growing concerns about the pace of a global economic recovery and its impact on world energy demand.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke visit their ancestral homeland this week to press China to join with the United States in stepped-up efforts to fight global warming.

An uneasy calm returned on Sunday to China's riot-hit Urumqi where 184 people died in ethnic violence a week ago, though the official tally of dead could rise, a regional official indicated.

Australia warned China on Sunday of the risks to business confidence from the detention without charge of an Australian executive accused of stealing state secrets, and Chinese executives feared a wider purge.

The Australian government is prepared for a long haul in dealing with China's detention of a senior Australian mining executive on suspicion of stealing state secrets, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said on Sunday.

China raised the death toll from ethnic rioting in Xinjiang, giving for the first time the ethnicity of the dead, and a big security presence in the city at the center of the strife prevented protests on Saturday.

Petrochemical firm Saudi Basic Industries Corp said on Saturday Chinese authorities have approved an equally-owned joint-venture plant with Sinopec.

North Korea's military is behind a series of cyber attacks against South Korean and U.S. websites that slowed or disabled access by saturating them with traffic this week, a South Korean news report said on Saturday.

The issue of reserve currencies and the reform of the international monetary regime will probably not take place at the Group Eight Summit (G8) with the so-called Group Five (G5) nations, despite the calls from China and other countries, according to industry experts.

The G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, concluded on Friday.The U.S. Energy Department announced on Friday it will deploy funds of more than $589 million for energy efficiency and weatherization programs. Continental Automotive awarded for production of lithium-ion batteries.

A G8 summit made scant progress toward a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in December with some nations back-pedaling on promises of new action even before the end of a meeting in Italy.

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The world's most powerful countries have injected momentum into long-running negotiations over a new global free trade pact by setting a 2010 deadline.

G8 leaders pledged $20 billion (12.3 billion pounds) in farm aid to help poor nations feed themselves, surpassing expectations on the final day of a summit that has yielded little progress on climate change and trade.

A 6.0 magnitude earthquake that shook southwest China's Yunnan province on Thursday has killed one person and injured 325 people, Xinhua news agency said.

Chinese riot police broke up a small demonstration by Uighurs leaving Friday prayers in a Muslim Uighur neighborhood of Urumqi, arresting several who were taken away with hands above their heads.

Chinese developers are commemorating the late Michael Jackson by building a scaled-down replica of his Neverland Ranch on an island off Shanghai, a state-run newspaper said on Friday.

German-based retailer giant Metro Group will invest 80 million euros ($112.3 million) in China to open four more stores there this year, Tianle Cai, chief executive of Metro China, announced on Thursday.

The U.S. trade gap narrowed unexpectedly to $26 billion in May, the smallest since November 1999, as exports rose and domestic demand for foreign goods slumped, government data on Friday showed.