Daily News Channel
After nearly three months of maintaining their silence, the families of two U.S. journalists detained in North Korea are taking to the airwaves this week to lobby for their release as the women go on trial Thursday. Analysts said they think Pyongyang will convict the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, on spying charges and hand down long sentences in the communist nation’s labor camps.
For Asians, it seems, being young and thin isn’t enough to ward off Type II diabetes. Though the disease is typically associated with old age and obesity, a study published May 27 in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that Asia’s growing number of diabetics are relatively young and well under weights traditionally matched with the disease
Cuba has agreed to resume talks with the United States over migration and mail service between the two countries, two senior State Department officials said. Geithner left Saturday for meetings in Beijing, where he’ll discuss ways to strengthen relations between China and the United States, according to the Treasury Department. China is one of America’s most important trading partners, and its economy is tightly intertwined with efforts to reverse the global downturn
In May 2005, when the corporate world’s enthusiasm for China was at its peak, I spent a few days in Beijing in the company of a bunch of top business executives from the U.S.
The spin game is on as the world tries to talk itself out of the worst recession since the end of World War II. The good news is that there is a slowing in the rate of deterioration in the global economy. The tougher news is that this is hardly surprising.
The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Chinese Muslim dissidents who want to be brought to the United States after their release from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The future of Opel remained uncertain Friday after Italian car giant Fiat withdrew from talks in Berlin due to concerns over emergency funding demanded by the German government for the ailing automaker. Fiat had been one of two potential bidders, along with Canadian-Austrian supplier Magna, still in the running to take over Opel, which is currently owned by General Motors. Fiat said in a statement Friday it remained interested in taking control of Opel but said the German government’s demand for the potential suitors to provide $417 million in short-term funding would expose Fiat to “unnecessary and unwarranted risks.” “Fiat remains open and committed to continue discussions with all parties involved with a view to find a stable and lasting solution for the industrial activities of Opel,” Fiat said
Racing between OPEC meetings in Vienna, Saudi Arabia’s powerful oil minister Ali Al-Naimi told a reporter that the cartel was “determined” to keep the price of oil at around $25 a barrel, rather than risk a slump in the market by boosting its production. Wait a minute. $25 Al-Naimi said that in April 2003 — less than five years ago — when a barrel of oil cost one-quarter of this week’s whopping $100, and when prices were regarded as high enough to keep oil-rich countries happy
President Obama is expected to announce Friday the creation of the position of cyber czar, a person who will coordinate the nation’s efforts to protect government and private computer systems from hackers, criminal gangs, terrorists and spies, people familiar with the plan said Thursday. The czar will report to both the national security adviser and the head of the National Economic Council, the sources said.
Storage tankers across the globe may be brimming with oil that no one is buying because of the global economic downturn, but the traditional laws of supply and demand don’t always apply to oil prices. Drivers have faced rising prices at the gas pump in recent months, as investors and oil-producing countries hoard supplies in anticipation of a global economic recovery later this year.