IBT Staff Reporter

Russia and China strengthen their geopolitical partnership ahead of a major meeting of Eurasia leaders. But rather than love, it may be just a marriage of convenience.

Panetta's speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this past weekend was meant to be about America's grand return to the Pacific. Instead, everyone's attention was on China.

German industrial orders fell at their fastest rate since November 2011 in April as orders from abroad dried up, adding to signs that Europe's largest economy is heading for a slowdown.

Spain said on Tuesday that credit markets were closing to the euro zone's fourth biggest economy as finance chiefs of the Group of Seven major economies were to hold emergency talks on the currency bloc's worsening debt crisis.

Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc, told jurors at the insider-trading trial of one of the investment bank's former directors that all parts of a 2008 board meeting the two attended were confidential.

Finance chiefs of the Group of Seven leading industrialized powers will hold emergency talks on the euro zone debt crisis on Tuesday in a sign of heightened global alarm about strains in the 17-nation European currency area.

China is boldly heading where few have gone before, but in the opposite direction from where most would imagine.

American military machines are endangered by phony components from China. No one has been hurt yet as a result, but solving the problem will be a herculean task.

Sina Weibo, the popular Chinese social-media network and innovative microblogging service, has been running on new rules to restrict unlawful and disruptive discourse since May 28.

The legal activist gives his first public speaking engagement in America after leaving from China.

India's economic growth slumped to its lowest level in nine years in the first three months of 2012, marking a dramatic slide in the fortunes of a country whose economy was boasting nearly double-digit growth before the global recession.

Another worker riot has flared up in Eastern China, fed by anger and frustration against the government.

Japanese industrial output rose in April at a slower pace than expected, in a discouraging sign that China's slowing economy and Europe's sovereign debt crisis will weigh on Japan's recovery.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co is spinning off the special investments group from its scandal-plagued chief investment office in a bid to overhaul the division that cost the bank more than $2 billion in trading losses this month, the Financial Times reported.

Ford Motor Co will pursue its boldest attempt yet to tackle a nearly $50 billion risk to its business when it begins offering lump-sum pension payout offers to 98,000 white-collar retirees and former employees this summer.

Can you really protect your allies while still cutting the military? That's the conundrum the U.S. is now facing, even as it talks about pivoting back to Asia and returning in force to the Western Pacific.

The Chinese government says it will allocate the equivalent of $27 billion to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs in 2012, but the battle against the deterioration of China's environment will be a long and tough one.

China and Japan, not exactly the world's best friends, will soon be walking away from the dollar, hand-in-hand. Although the two countries have their share of diplomatic problems, June 1st will mark a historic day in Sino-Japanese relations, as they move to conduct trade directly using their own currencies.

Graft and debt are crippling China's railway industry and eroding trust in the government's management of a crucial sector of transportation -- and may kill the dream of becoming the world's leader in high-speed trains

China's government bet big on shipping in the last decade. For a time, it paid off, even propelling the country to the world's top spot in shipbuilding. Now a major global slowdown is hurting the sector, and shipyards are in line for closure

China's growing hunger for the RV is providing further evidence for the theory that the Middle Kingdom is trying to become more American -- at least in its pastimes.

Claims by four of Wall Street's main market makers against Nasdaq over Facebook's botched IPO are likely to exceed $100 million, as they and other traders continue to deal with thousands of problems with customer orders.

A school cafeteria in China's Shandong province may have attempted to serve whale meat to students -- an illegal act that came to light when the whale's carcass was discovered in the kitchen. It has since disappeared, and so has the cafeteria's manager

The Philippines say China has now deployed a large fishing and coast guard fleet to their disputed shoal in the South China Sea, but China says the development is in line with precedents.

2012 will be a historic moment in the shift of global power from the West to the East. According to expert estimates and figures on military spending, in 2012 Asia's spending on defense will eclipse Europe's for the first time in the modern era.

As European leaders struggled to hold the euro zone together at a nighttime summit in Brussels, a widening gap emerged between Germany and France, which are now under new management.

A New York jury on Wednesday heard former Goldman director Rajat Gupta on a FBI wiretap casually discussing business with Raj Rajaratnam, the now-imprisoned hedge fund founder he is accused of tipping off about boardroom secrets.

The Philippines is getting ships and assistance from other countries as it faces off against China, but it's still a far cry from matching Beijing's military capabilities

Hewlett Packard Co outlined a plan on Wednesday to lay off roughly 27,000 employees or about 8 percent of its workforce to jumpstart growth.