LONDON - WORLD champion Jenson Button has signed to drive alongside Lewis Hamilton for McLaren next year, the Formula One team announced on Wednesday.
The British driver has decided to end a nine-year association with Brawn, with whom he won his first driver's title this year.
BEIJING - US PRESIDENT Barack Obama wrapped up his first trip to China on Wednesday by meeting Premier Wen Jiabao, who said the two nations were better off as partners not rivals, and visiting the Great Wall.
The US president left Beijing for South Korea, where he was due to meet President Lee Myung-Bak on Thursday for talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programme and a stalled bilateral free trade pact.
KUALA LUMPUR - THE World Bank said on Wednesday that Malaysia must introduce sweeping reforms if it wants to achieve its ambitious goal of becoming a developed nation by 2020.
'To reach the 2020 developed status, the World Bank is proposing a four-pillar strategy,' Mr Vikram Nehru, chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific, told reporters.
HONG KONG - HONG Kong on Wednesday paved the way for a move towards universal suffrage with a proposal to increase the number of people who elect the city's leader.
But the plan fell short of the expectations of the city's pro-democracy politicians, who have urged the government to introduce a vote-for-all in 2012.
