The United States and China have announced a raft of trade deals worth $45 billion, as the two powers tried to narrow disputes by tethering their economic fortunes.
Arab leaders gather in Egypt to discuss trade and development as the region feels the aftershocks of a popular uprising in Tunisia that emboldened dissidents in the Arab world.
Some smaller commercial banks in the past week have raised the interest rates they offer on US dollar deposits by 0.9 to 1.3 percentage points to as high as 6.1 per cent per year.
Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer is planning to handover to WikiLeaks two CDs containing data of around 2,000 bank clients who may have been evading taxes.
The heads of BP and Russian oil firm Rosneft announced an "historic" deal to swap shares in a joint venture to exploit the vast untouched energy resources of the Arctic.
The trade of liquor, beer, dried foods, garments, fabrics, cosmetics, and cigarettes, mostly smuggled from China, has become hotter in Ho Chi Minh City as Tet is coming.