Rebel News - Independent News and Analysis

New figures released on Wednesday show a strong year-on-year increase in China's exports, even better than forecasted before.

According to Chinese customs data, China's exports increased 45.7 percent to reach 94.5 billion dollars in February from a year earlier — fastest pace in three years.

The head of China's Central Bank has declared that the country is ready to end pegging its currency in dollars, but said that any changes would be gradual.

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, described the decision as a "temporary" response to the global financial crisis, but gave no timescale for any change in policy.

China's real estate boom has further deepened the divide between the haves and the have-nots as the country's middle class struggles with soaring property prices. Wen Jiabao, China's premier, on Friday pledged measures to curb speculation in the country's housing market and rein in soaring prices, but with real estate accounting for 10 per cent of GDP, making any changes would not be welcomed by investors. The dilemma for Chinese leaders is finding a balance between their need for prices to stabilise, while avoiding a property price crash. Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan reports from Beijing. (6 March 2010)

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second largest industrial manufacturer, a new report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) says.

According to UNIDO estimates, China's share of the global total of manufacturing value, known as MVA, has reached 15.6 percent in 2009, slightly larger than Japan's share of 15.4 percent, while the USA maintains its first rank with 19 percent.

A Counting the Cost Experiment: "Spot the Toyota in Doha"

Indonesia's parliament has called for a criminal investigation senior government officials' handling of a $700m bank bailout. It was approved in 2008 by the vice president and finance minister to save the privately-owned Bank Century. Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reports from Jakarta.

Despite the safety problems and public relations nightmare, Toyota has been trying to win back some of its customers at the Geneva car show, one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. The world's top carmaker led the launch of its new global hybrid Auris compact with another apology over global recalls in recent months, this time to European customers. Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull has more. (Mar 3, 2010)

Nissan Motor Co. plans to recall almost 540,000 vehicles worldwide to join other Japanese automakers to fix its faulty cars.

The recalls are due to brake pedal defects and damaged gauges.

Google has said it is continuing to review the future of its China operations, almost two months after the firm said it would stop complying with Chinese government regulations requiring it to censor search results.

On Tuesday a senior executive from the internet search giant told a US senate committee that the company's investigation into alleged hacking attacks on its email service was still in process.

Japan's unemployment rate fell to 4.9 per cent in January, improving by 0.3 percentage points from the previous month, official government data has shown.

The fall is a marked improvement from a record high jobless rate of 5.7 per cent seen last July and is being seen as a further positive sign of recovery in the world's number two economy.