China faces pressure to reverse economic slump

France bombed Islamist targets in northern Mali on Monday following a string of guerrilla attacks by the extremists a month after Paris launched an offensive to drive them from its former colony.

Premier Wen Jiabao says China's economy faces huge pressure to slow further despite stimulus measures. Wen's remarks damp hopes for a quick recovery from the country's deepest slump since the 2008 global financial crisis.

THE ranks of China sceptics are large and noisy. As China's government tightens policy in an attempt to engineer a soft-landing off of recent, scorching growth, the sceptics have ever more pieces of evidence hinting at big trouble. I have written that many of the most bearish China watchers are underestimating the real strengths in China's economy. But China does have some significant structural problems, and as growth slows, some of those problems may become more evident and more of an economic threat.

BRUSSELS – Children across Europe are being driven into poverty by harsh government austerity and youth unemployment is soaring, threatening to create “lost generations” that could fire up a new continental crisis. Global charity Caritas said on Thursday that around three out of every 10 children in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain are in or have been pushed to the brink of poverty. Greece said its youth unemployment had now exceeded 60%. Spain’s is above 50% and Portugal has just topped 40%.

By Dana Blankenhorn: Hillenbrand (HI) is one of the great mystery stocks of 2012. Much more fun to speculate about than the fiscal cliff. Follow me inside.A few years ago, this company was just about dead. No, really. Their main operating unit was Batesville and they make caskets. Caskets can be a good business, folks just dying to get them, but as cremation increases in popularity you have a lid on growth, so to speak.

BEIJING (AP) -- The World Bank warned Wednesday of a possible slump in global economic growth and urged developing countries to prepare for shocks that could be more severe than the 2008 crisis....