DPRK top leader vows to boost economy in New Year address

Making his first new year's speech, Kim Jong-un, leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, called on Tuesday for his country to focus on economic improvements with the same urgency that scientists put into the launch of a long-range rocket last month.

Foreign tourists describe icy US bus crash

Survivors of a bus crash that killed nine people on a partly icy section of interstate in rural Eastern Oregon said on Monday that some passengers were thrown from the vehicle through broken windows after it skidded out of control, smashed through a guardrail and plummeted 60 meters down an embankment.

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China to boost public diplomacy, exchanges

Public diplomacy is a major direction for China to explore in the future, and tangible efforts will be made to boost public diplomacy and cultural exchanges, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in Beijing on Monday.

African Union head proposes national unity govt for CAR

The head of the African Union, Benin's President Thomas Boni Yayi, has proposed a government of national unity to resolve the rebel conflict in the Central African Republic.

Mood darkens as 'fiscal cliff' looms for US

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are on the brink of letting their nation slide over the so-called fiscal cliff - leaving senators to fume that nobody does dysfunction better than Congress.

Clinton admitted to hospital after blood clot found

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was admitted to a New York hospital on Sunday with a blood clot linked to a concussion she suffered earlier this month, the State Department said.

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Toward better bilateral ties

It has long been debated whether trust, or distrust, between China and the United States is on the rise. Those who believe the US is unwilling to accept China's peaceful rise - and thus makes it difficult to maintain a healthy environment for Sino-American trade - have many facts to support their view.

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Help Internet users fight corruption

Aseries of anti-corruption cases, many exposed by new media, have hit the headlines since the 18th Party Congress elected a new leadership in November. While observers say China's fast-growing online community is becoming increasingly influential in fighting corruption, they attribute the recent cases, some of them high profile, to the new leadership's determination to root out corruption.

Dream big and aim high

"Omnishambles" is the Oxford Diction- ary's "Word of the Year 2012". It denotes "a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterized by a string of blunders and miscalculations".