CHINA

Asian shares fell into bear market territory for the year and commodities and the euro nursed stinging losses Thursday, after fears that Europe's debt crisis is still worsening prompted investors to dump riskier assets and huddle in the safety of the dollar and Treasuries.

Sixteen top technology leaders – including the founders of Google, Netscape, Yahoo and eBay – published full-page advertisements Wednesday opposing the pending Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress.

Morgan Stanley has returned $700 million to investors after its main real estate fund performed weaker than expected, reported the Wall Street Journal.

On a quiet stretch of the waterfront here, about a mile from Boston's main tourist sites, a Gillette factory hums along 24 hours a day making an unlikely commodity: top-of-the-line razors.

The U.S. attorney's office said dinnerware belonging to Saddam Hussein and the former royal family of Iraq was illegally imported into the U.S. and bought on eBay by an arts organization for an exhibition at a Manhattan restaurant.

Anger with the selling of their land to real estate developers without their consent, compounded by the death of one of their appointed mediators, thousands of Chinese villagers in the southern China village of Wukan found themselves in a locked stand-off with authorities Wednesday.

Foreign companies in China are concerned that a new social security tax on expatriate workers will raise business and living costs and leave payers unable to claim benefits, a survey by the American Chamber of Commerce showed on Wednesday.

Denmark's Novozymes A/S , the world's leading industrial enzyme producer, is now in talks over a series of projects that will boost its presence in China's growing biochemical sector, a company executive said on Wednesday.

South Korea said on Wednesday it had asked China for security guarantees at its Beijing embassy after the building was hit by a small projectile as tensions run high after the killing of a South Korean coastguard by a Chinese fisherman.

Thousands of residents of a south China village rallied on Wednesday in defiance of police who sealed off the area to contain a long-running feud over land grabs and anger over the death of a village leader in police custody.

China on Wednesday dangled the prospect of more trade and economic incentives for Taiwan ahead of elections there next month, but warned the pro-independence opposition closer ties would be at risk if it did not change its stance.

Chinese wines took the top four places in a China vs Bordeaux blind tasting competition on Wednesday, but it wasn't exactly a thrashing of the world's most elite wines by Chinese upstarts.

India's economic gloom deepened on Wednesday as figures showed a record low rupee is adding to Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) inflation headache and an adviser to the prime minister said there was little that could be done to check the currency's slump.

Worries that India's evolution into an economic superpower may be overhyped and signs the government may lack the will to further dismantle a protectionist legacy drove India-themed funds to the bottom of performance league tables in November.

A shift in the global military balance is one of the inalienable fallouts of the economic winter experienced by the Western world. While military spending in the U.S., the reigning super power, is increasingly coming under a scanner, the extended defense holiday in Europe signals that the continent’s global influence is on irreversible decline.

South Korean women, who were forced into sexual slavery during the World War II, held their 1,000 weekly protest outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

India's wholesale prices rose more than expected in November, leaving inflation stubbornly high and suggesting the RBI would hold rates steady at its review on Friday even as worries grow over the health of the economy.

China pledged to guarantee growth in the face of an extremely grim outlook for the global economy in 2012, as its annual policy-setting conference closed on Wednesday with a series of commitments to deliver economic stability.

Demand for luxury menswear has exceeded that in the Womenswear sector possibly triggered by increased sales in the male-dominated market in China, according to an analysis.

China will consider turning to the Seychelles as a resupply port for navy ships taking part in anti-piracy operations off Africa, official media said, rejecting suggestions this would amount to a military base that could unsettle the region.

The latest in a string of deadly crashes involving children, a school bus taking primary students home slipped off a country road into an irrigation ditch in eastern China, killing 15 children and wounding eight others, officials said.