CHINA

China overtook the United States as the world's biggest auto market for the first half of 2009 after June sales soared 36.5% from a year earlier, according to official data released on Thursday.

Yang Rong, a Chinese automobile tycoon who fled the country after being accused of economic crimes, is preparing to launch an ambitious plan to make clean-tech cars in the United States, said a source.

China's Guilin Sanjin Pharmaceutical Co and Zhejiang Wanma Cable Co on Thursday said they would list shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Friday, the first two initial public equity offerings in the Chinese stock market since last September.

Singapore's state investor Temasek TEM.UL is in talks with a unit of Bank of China to launch a $1 billion to $2 billion investment fund to focus on fast-growing infrastructure projects across China, sources said on Thursday.

U.S. President Barack Obama said at the G8 summit on Thursday there is still time to close the gap with developing powers on climate change, after the U.N. chief criticised the G8 for not going hard enough.

Leaders of the world's richest nations and major developing powers meet on Thursday to seek common ground on global warming and international trade, with the poorer countries seeking concessions.

Four employees of Australian miner Rio Tinto have been arrested in China on charges of stealing state secrets, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday, citing Shanghai's state security authorities. The suspects included Stern Hu, an Australian national and Rio Tinto's top iron ore salesman in China.

Chinese President Hu Jintao, forced to abandon a G8 summit in Italy by ethnic violence in restive Xinjiang, said that maintaining social stability in the energy-rich region was the most urgent task, state television reported on Thursday.

Even if President Lula da Silva is wrong when he said God must be Brazilian, the country is still experiencing miracles in terms of its notable economic progress while a greater part of the world has lagged due to the economic recession.

Some huge, hard-to-believe numbers coming from the Chinese - if I had a nickel for every time I wrote that... I could melt all those nickels, sell it on the spot market and buy enough gold to plate my new ZH decal.

China said on Thursday detained staff from Australian miner Rio Tinto had harmed China's economic interests in a case that has rattled currency markets and raised questions about China-Australia relations.

China confirmed on Thursday the arrest of an Australian mining executive and three others on spying allegations, in a case that has rattled currency markets and raised questions about China-Australia relations.

G8 tackles climate change, Google's challenge, Obama IMF Restrictions

Alcoa Inc posted a third consecutive quarterly loss on Wednesday, but cost cuts helped the largest U.S. aluminum maker beat Wall Street estimates by a large margin, sending its stock higher.

Senators Harry Reid, Robert Menendez and Orrin Hatch, accompanied by Texas oilman T Boone Pickens on Wednesday introduced newly proposed a Natural gas legislation. The G8 agreed on Wednesday to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. The head of the American Petroleum Institute Jack Gerard called for more drilling to bring additional domestic energy supplies to the marketplace

The Obama administration on Wednesday said it strongly opposed legislation in the U.S. Congress that would restrict its ability to respond to future financial crises through the International Monetary Fund.

In a shift from previous incidents of unrest, Chinese authorities have welcomed foreign media to cover last Sunday's ethnic riots in China's Xianjian region, but are still limiting communications.

The G8 agreed on Wednesday to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent, but it failed to persuade China and India to join a bid to halve world emissions.

Banks of paramilitary police fanned out in the far-flung Chinese city of Urumqi on Wednesday to try to stifle unrest days after 156 people were killed in the region's worst ethnic violence in decades.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono looked set to win a second term on Wednesday as provisional election results showed there would be no need for a run-off vote, opening the way for a period of quickening reform.

China is at the start of another boom in car sales that is being propelled by rising incomes in third-tier cities and could continue for a few years, JP Morgan said on Wednesday.