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America is no longer the land of opportunity -- China is, says Stan Grant. But while some people get it, U.S. politicians seem bent on casting China as the bad guy.

South Korean police on Monday tried for hours to block a civic group from sending pro-democracy leaflets across the border by balloon after North Korea threatened the activists with a “merciless military strike,” but the South’s efforts ultimately failed.

India is becoming a critical testing ground for Facebook as it strives to capitalize on growth in emerging markets and better target mobile-phone users—two increasingly pressing goals for the social-networking firm.

Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba has defended the central government’s decision to buy the Senkaku Islands, stating in a BBC interview in London this week that if Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara had made the purchase, as originally intended, things would be much worse by now. While Genba feels it was the best choice for Japan to control the territory disputed with China, he argued that if the hawkish, nationalist Tokyo Governor had gained control personally, he would have followed through on his publicized plans of landing and developing on the islands, actions that would have outraged China to no end.

Hong Kong authorities confiscated $26.7 million worth of ivory found in two shipping containers this week. The illegal goods weighed more than 8,000 pounds, making it one of the biggest seizures of ivory in Hong Kong. The containers arrived from Tanzania and Kenya, according to Hong Kong customs officials. The agency seized a total of 1,209 pieces of ivory tusks and three pounds of ivory ornaments from the two containers.

The 17-year-old grandson of late North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il granted a TV interview providing a rare look at a member of the secretive ruling dynasty. "I've always dreamed that one day I would go back and make things better and make it easier for the people there," Kim Han Sol said in the interview posted on YouTube.

The United States will invite Myanmar to the world's largest multinational military field exercise, a powerful symbolic gesture toward a military with a grim human rights record and a milestone in its rapprochement with the West.

Impoverished North Korea threatened on Friday to open fire on South Korea if it allows activists to go ahead with plans to drop anti-North leaflets on its territory, its most strident warning against its long-time foe in months.

New economic data from China on Thursday showed that the world’s second-largest economy after the United States expanded at its slowest pace since 2009 during the third quarter of this year — though surprisingly strong data for the month of September also showed that the deceleration may, for now at least, have come to an end.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners on Wednesday afternoon tearfully welcomed the arrival of the body of the most revered ex-King Norodom Sihanouk, who died of illness at the age of 90 in Beijing on Monday.