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China will expand plans to ease its air pollution problems this year by installing green energy projects that add almost 2½ times as much solar capacity as the United States added last year.

The mainland's state-run media is trying to do something the securities industry has failed to accomplish for much of the past three years: get the world's biggest population to buy more stocks.

After posting three straight years of losses that thinned the ranks of hedge funds specialising in currencies, the foreign-exchange market is showing signs of rebounding.

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Warburg Pincus will invest close to US$700 million in China Huarong Asset Management, people with knowledge of the matter said, in the biggest investment in the nation's financial industry by a foreign buyout firm.

For all the concern about the prospect of tougher international sanctions and signs of slowing growth, more money flowed last month into Russia and China exchange-traded funds than any other emerging markets.

Halliburton has reached a US$1.1 billion settlement for a majority of claims against the company for its role in the biggest US offshore oil spill in 2010.

Bets that China Mobile's US$2 billion cut in handset subsidies will help the world's biggest phone company reverse a profit slump pushed bullish options on the stock to a 19-month high.

The Swiss economy unexpectedly stalled in the second quarter of this year as stagnating growth in the euro zone hurt exports.

When former kindergarten teacher Kim Sun-sung tried to rejoin South Korea's workforce after five years raising her children, she found it tough. Then 41, Kim was either told she was too old or had been out of work for too long.

Scotland's prospects of independence after a referendum in two weeks received a boost yesterday when a second opinion poll showed the "Yes" camp within touching distance of victory.

London Mayor Boris Johnson's plan to replace Heathrow with a new airport on an island in the Thames estuary has been dismissed by an official study as too expensive and complex to address Britain's aviation needs.

After gold's rally in the first half of the year beat gains for commodities, equities and Treasuries, bullion is back to being out of favour with investors.

Cracks are emerging in Germany's once rock-solid economy as companies' reluctance to invest bears out European Central Bank president Mario Draghi's warning that the euro-zone recovery is in danger.

The mainland's top legislature passed an amendment to the Budget Law yesterday, paving the way for more local governments to sell bonds directly to raise funds for public projects.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has called for a global coalition to combat Islamic State militants and their "genocidal agenda".

Alibaba Group is postponing the start of investor meetings for its initial public offering by about a week to answer questions posed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors are returning to the largest Chinese exchange-traded fund in the United States at the fastest pace in almost two years on signs that a government stimulus programme will support growth in the economy.

Japan's biggest banks are breaking tradition by promoting foreigners to top management roles to retain and lure overseas talent as growth abroad buoys profit.

Two years after being plucked from the ranks of exchange product developers to design the JPX-Nikkei Index 400, Daisuke Tanaka finds himself at the centre of a corporate revolution.

The FBI is investigating attacks on the computers of banking giant JPMorgan Chase and several other American banks, officials said.

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Every day, the American bull market looks more and more like the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s. Except when it comes to valuations.

KKR, the private equity firm led by billionaires Henry Kravis and George Roberts, is buying a minority stake in China's largest chicken breeder and processor for about US$400 million.

The mainland is considering providing as much as 100 billion yuan (HK$126 billion) in government funding to build charging facilities for electric vehicles and spur demand for clean cars, according to two sources.

Islamic State, which now controls an area of Iraq and Syria larger than Britain, may be raising more than US$2 million a day in revenue from oil sales, extortion, taxes and smuggling.

Central London office buildings considered riskier bets are commanding higher prices as a shortage of properties available to lease sends rents soaring.

Home flipping, in which a buyer resells a property quickly for a profit, is on the decline as United States residential price gains slow and foreclosures dwindle.

After moving six times in 10 years, chemical researcher Choi Youn-ho is hopeful easier mortgage rules will finally allow him to buy a home on the outskirts of Seoul for his family of four.

Volatility in equity markets in the United States is near a record low and traders have loaded up on bets it has further to fall.