CNN.com - Asia

Oil prices fell Friday, as a preliminary consumer sentiment report came in worse than expected, overshadowing a rosy government retail sales report and a weaker dollar.

The dollar fell Friday against most major currencies except the yen as investors digested conflicting reports on retail sales and consumer confidence.

Royal Dutch Shell has stopped selling gasoline to Iran, the company confirmed Wednesday, adding to a list of oil giants that have stopped sales after a threat of future U.S. sanctions.

Pink Floyd won a legal battle Thursday against EMI that prevents the band's long-time record label from selling individual songs online.

It's time to start paying attention to the financial sinkhole that Iceland is trying to climb out of -- the view from inside of it is eerily similar to our own.

In the middle of the 2001 debt crisis, Argentines stormed their nation's banks to get their money out. To stop the stampede, the government imposed controls that allowed them to take out only $250 at a time and limited withdrawals for overseas trips to $1,000.

What economic crisis? After a blip last winter, China is growing at more than 8% a year, and the scale and speed at which the country is building a modern infrastructure are mind-boggling.

Just over a year ago a few members of the research team at Hedgeye attended a lecture at Yale Law School by Robert Rubin, the former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton. During the question and answer session, Rubin was asked about sovereign risk -- the threat that an entire nation effectively walking away from its financial obligations. Mr. Rubin was blunt: he said categorically that he did not expect any major nations to default on its debt.

The Chinese have rarely given into foreign pressure to revalue its currency higher. But that doesn't mean it won't let the yuan rise later this year.

Check International ETFs here

Two of the world's oil-rich countries may make it harder for oil companies to do business with them.

Greek prime minister George Papandreou may have made a big mistake. As part of a plan to fix his nation's ruined economy, he announced Wednesday that he aims to cut 30% of civil servants' holiday bonuses which are part of Greece's "14th salary" payment schedule.

Facing firm demands from the European Union and financial markets to cut its deficit, Greece announced cost-cutting measures Wednesday that will save the debt-challenged country ?4 billion, $5.44 billion, this year.

Mazda is in the hot seat Wednesday after recalling 12,300 CX-9 crossover SUVs over potentially overheating seats.

The British are coming! So are the Germans. And the Japanese. And the Canadians. And the French.

Toyota executives told lawmakers Tuesday that its U.S. and Canadian divisions will have more authority to decide when to issue a recall as the automaker faces mounting pressure from Washington over its recent safety problems.

AIG said Monday that it had reached a definitive agreement to sell its Asian life insurance business to Britain's Prudential PLC in a deal valued at $35.5 billion.

Copper prices surged overnight after a massive earthquake struck Chile, the world's largest producer of the metal, over the weekend.

China is one of the largest holders of U.S. Treasurys. So some worry that our massive budget deficit, which China has vocally complained about, is the equivalent of biting the hand that feeds us.

The massive earthquake that struck Chile this weekend did between $15 billion and $30 billion in damage to the South American nation's economy, according to a risk management assessment firm.