CULTURE AND SPORT

French finance minister Christine Lagarde arrived in China Wednesday as she pursues a global charm offensive to back her bid to lead the IMF.

Salary and bonus to coaches and athletes in Vietnam will almost double as of July.

Rising food and fuel prices are taking the wind out of the global economy's recovery this year, the World Bank has said.

Phan Thi Mo, one of the top five contestants of Miss Vietnam World 2010, has been invited to take part in the Miss Asia USA 2011 pageant.

Nintendo provided the first glimpse of a second-generation Wii console designed to dispel notions its system is not up to the standards of "hardcore" videogame players.  

Germany kept tracing the source of a bacteria outbreak that has killed 24 amid warnings it might never be found.

European Union agriculture ministers are holding emergency talks in Luxembourg on the bacteria crisis that has left 23 dead.

A Chilean volcano sent ash across South America, forcing thousands from their homes, grounding airline flights in southern Argentina.

The UN's climate chief urged negotiators gathering for new talks over news that global warming could bust a threshold widely considered safe.

Japan has more than doubled its initial estimate of radiation released from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in the week after March 11.

The bones of an extinct sea cow species that lived about 20 million years ago have been discovered in a cave in the Philippines.

Apple has unveiled a free service called iCloud that stores music, photos and other content on the Web and shares it across multiple devices.

German Falko Goetz will be the head coach of Vietnam ’s national football squad and Olympic team for the next two years.

One hundred and twenty policemen were killed by "armed gangs" in northwest Syria, state television said on Monday.

Fallen IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared at a New York court Monday, expected to launch a fight to clear his name.

Former IMF chief arrived at a New York courtroom Monday for a new hearing on charges of sexually assaulting a chambermaid.

A student won first prize at a music contest with his impressive Vietnamese flute and piano performance.

Young Hanoians decked themselves out in their finest ‘cosplay’ costumes, paying homage to their manga favourites.

NATO warplanes battered Moamer Kadhafi's command network in Tripoli, it said Monday ahead of a visit to Libya by an envoy from Russia.