CHINA'S President Xi Jinping Wednesday urged Asian economies to sign up to its free trade agreement, warning that rival pacts risked causing "fragmentation" among regional nations.

WHEN a landslide created a huge, turquoise lake that cut them off from the world, the farmers of Gulmit were left destitute and unable to sell their potatoes. Their solution: to drag their Himalayan valley in Pakistan's far north into the Internet age.

Monsanto is weighing whether to launch another attempt to take over Swiss agrochemicals giant Syngenta, after the Swiss company

Aung San Suu Kyi's landslide election win might be bad news for Myanmar businessmen like construction magnate Khin Shwe, who lost his parliament seat and remains barred from doing business with US nationals due to his ties to the former junta. Or maybe not.

China has moved to restrict trade at offshore yuan clearing banks, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, stepping up capital controls even as Beijing positions its currency for inclusion in the International Monetary Fund's reserve basket.

Global payment operator MasterCard Inc sees double-digit annual growth in credit card transaction volumes in China, lifted by the booming e-commerce industry in the world's second-largest economy, a senior executive told Reuters on Monday.

Japan's economy slipped into recession for the second time since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power nearly three years ago, data showed Monday, dealing a fresh blow to his drive to kickstart weak growth and end years of deflation.

APPLE announced on Sunday that it has struck a deal to power all of its Singapore operations with renewable energy, the latest in a series of steps from the company to turn its operations worldwide green.

FOR most of its 100-year history, when Boeing turned out more planes, employment soared and the Seattle-area economy prospered. When the rate of production fell, layoffs followed and the local economy crashed.

AIRLINE and travel-related stocks tumbled in Asia Monday following the deadly terror attacks in Paris, but analysts and industry players said they expect the impact to be short-lived.

APEC does not want to see a United States-led free-trade agreement become a "rich-economy club", a senior forum official said Monday.

US-based Marriott International said Monday that it has purchased Starwood for $12.2 billion, creating the world's largest hotel chain

Japan's economy slid back into recession in July-September as uncertainty over the overseas outlook hurt business investment.

France's fragile economic recovery is under threat after the Paris attacks, economists say, with tourism and consumer spending likely to come under siege.

Greece said on Wednesday it was close to a deal with international lenders on regulating non-performing loans, a thorny issue which has delayed a disbursement of aid under its latest multi-billion euro bailout.

Japan, the United States but also increasingly China, are among the few nations driving global innovations like 3D-printing, the UN said Wednesday, urging more investments in fields expected to carry future economic growth.

Chinese internet users spent billions of dollars in the planet's biggest online shopping splurge Wednesday, as "Singles Day" hit new heights, despite slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

PAKISTAN'S poorest province is set to sign a deal with China Wednesday allotting thousands of acres of land for Beijing to develop a massive special economic zone in the deep sea port of Gwadar, officials told AFP.

A coalition of "sharing economy" startups joined labor activists and others Tuesday to endorse efforts for a "flexible safety net" for workers without traditional job protection.

Apple's freshly launched music service became available Tuesday on rival mobile devices powered by Google-backed Android software.