CHINA

Chemical firms using natural gas as feedstock in southwestern Chinese provinces were facing mounting risks to scale down and even close operations due to gas shortages and rising gas prices, an industry newspaper reported on Thursday.

A Mercuria Energy Group subsidiary has formed a joint venture with Hong-Kong listed China Datang Corp. Renewable Power Co. , focusing on renewable energy and carbon credits, energy trading house Mercuria said on its website.

Stable prices remain the top priority for the Chinese government, but any policy moves must avoid hurting economic growth, China's Finance Minister Xie Xuren said on Thursday.

Chinese President Hu Jintao showed definitive confidence in the euro and the European economy despite some concerns, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday after the two leaders met in Beijing.

China home grown sport brand Li Ning Co Ltd. , which posted a 50 percent fall in its first half profit, said the operating environment is expected to remain challenging on intensifying competition among brands and escalating cost.

China's main state-owned companies will double their investments in the restless far western region of Xinjiang over the next five years to 991.6 billion yuan ($155 billion), a major Chinese newspaper reported on Thursday.

The globally-popular Apple iPhone sums up Steve Jobs' legacy perhaps better than anything else.

Steve Jobs' greatest legacy as Apple's leader is without a doubt the Apple iPhone. The globally popular product sums it all up in regard to Jobs' legacy.

You've got to put your money somewhere, right? Under the mattress doesn't really work as a retirement program. It's lumpy, vulnerable to theft and your kids might find it.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China <1398.HK> and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd <1288.HK>, the country's top and No.3 lenders, respectively, on Thursday reported record first-half profits on better pricing power for loans and dismissed rising concerns over loans to local governments.

A six-second clip on Chinese state television has provided a rare glimpse into purported cyber hacking attacks launched by the country's military, despite long-standing official denials that the government engages in such activity.

For Eriko Ebina, standing outside a downtown Tokyo medical equipment store that has a side business buying gold, the recent surge in prices for the precious metal was just too tempting.

On his days off, Cordell Kent drives with his family about an hour into the eastern Australian countryside, lays out a picnic blanket and then joins hundreds of other families panning for gold in hopes of striking it rich.

Four Italian journalists who were abducted near Zawiya in Libya Wednesday have been freed, the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported on its Web site Thursday.

The resignation of Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs has opened the door for rival Samsung Electronics at a crucial time in the battle for smartphone supremacy in salesrooms and courtrooms around the world.

A small, shrew-like creature from the Jurassic era may be the earliest-known ancestor of the present placental mammals, which includes humans, a new study reveals.

Libya's new masters have offered a million-dollar bounty for the fugitive Moammar Gadhafi, after he urged his men to fight on in battles across parts of the capital.

Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Operating Officer, who has been standing in for CEO Steve Jobs during his medical leave, has been named the new CEO after Jobs resigned as Apple Inc Chief Executive on Wednesday, without specifying a reason.

Routine bribery shakedowns have driven middle-class Indians to pour into the streets to say enough is enough.

The discovery of partial skeleton of a small, shrew-like mammal, in the fossil beds of Liaoning, China, has helped explain the ancestry of living mammals on earth, including humans.

Could our ancient ancestor have been a tiny rodent?