U.S. President Barack Obama will be seeking China's backing over North Korea and Iran when he visits this month, but Beijing appears increasingly assertive about what Western pressure it accepts or rejects.

In a stirring and heartfelt tribute to the United States and its people, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington DC and outlined the post-war relationship between the United States and a politically free, and now united, Germany.

Bolstering the world economic recovery and crafting a deal to fight climate change will be top of the agenda for G-20 finance ministers meeting in Scotland from Friday.

“In price is knowledge,” one editor used to scream at me. Whether or not you believed in efficient markets, you could be sure the price of a bond, a currency or a commodity was trying to tell you something about the outlook for growth, inflation or monetary policy; all you had to do was listen and translate.

American beef or Taiwanese pork — which is safer to stay on the menu? Last month, at least 160 piglets in Taiwan displayed flu symptoms, and some of them have now been confirmed as testing positive for the H1N1 flu.

The eye-popping economic growth that has made China an attractive business partner has also funded an even faster expansion in its military spending that has raised eyebrows among U.S. policymakers.

The collapse of communism may have changed the face of eastern Europe but the region remains blighted by corruption and poor governance, lacking the strong institutions and leaders essential to a healthy society.

“The central bank's discussion really did reflect China's anxieties about its massive forex reserves, the depreciating dollar and U.S. monetary issuance,” said Dong Xian'an, chief economist at Industrial Securities in Shanghai.

In his November 1 article entitled “Bashing of Human Rights Watch unfair,” Scott MacLeod wrongly accused Robert L. Bernstein of unfairly bashing Human Rights Watch (HRW), the organization Bernstein himself founded.

After being feted in Europe, mobbed in Africa and even cheered in the Middle East, Barack Obama will test the limits of his global star power next week in his debut presidential tour of Asia.