President Hu Jintao said Thursday China would offer $20 billion in new loans to Africa, as he delivered a speech to a Beijing forum on co-operation with the resource-rich continent.

The pledge -- double the amount Beijing agreed to lend to Africa at the last forum in 2009 -- underscores China's growing links with African nations as it looks to secure key commodities to feed its economic growth.

WikiLeaks is opening a new front in its battle to break the financial blockade imposed by credit card giants Visa and MasterCard, the group said Wednesday, saying it could now accept donations through a French non-profit.

Visa and MasterCard were among half a dozen U.S. payment firms to pull the plug on WikiLeaks once it made its controversial decision to begin publishing some 250,000 secret State Department cables in December 2010.

German sportswear giant Adidas said Wednesday it was closing its only company-owned factory in China, although the country would continue to be its "main global production site" via subcontractors.

A spokeswoman confirmed that the site in Suzhou, near Shanghai, which employs 160 people, would close at the end of October for "efficiency" reasons.

Shares in global banking giant HSBC fell more than two percent in Hong Kong on Wednesday after a top executive resigned over the lender's failure to control money laundering and terrorist financing.

London-based HSBC apologized Tuesday for failing to apply anti-laundering rules as U.S. lawmakers accused it of giving Iran, terrorists and drug dealers access to the U.S. financial system.

Baghdad's top energy official inaugurated a giant oilfield in south Iraq on Wednesday, with a group of Chinese, French and Malaysian firms set to pump 535,000 barrels of oil a day there within five years.

The official opening of the Halfaya field in Maysan province comes after Iraq signed three preliminary energy exploration deals with foreign firms, and with the country looking to ramp up oil output.

As markets and debt-wracked Eurozone countries cry out to Chancellor Angela Merkel for immediate action, a defiant top court and a strengthened role for Germany's parliament are slamming on the brakes.

On Thursday, German MPs will be dragged back from holiday to vote on a rescue package worth up to 100 billion euros ($123 billion) for beleaguered Spanish banks. Germany's parliament has to vote on all Eurozone bailouts.

In a hard-hitting report, U.S. lawmakers accused the global bank HSBC on Monday of opening the doors of the financial system to terrorists, drug dealers and money launderers.

Senators found the London-based lender allowed affiliates in countries such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh to move billions of dollars in suspect funds into the United States without adequate controls.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it had signed a deal to buy a mobile technology unit belonging to British firm Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR) in a bid to improve its handheld devices.

Under the deal signed Monday, Samsung will buy CSR's facility which develops mobile connectivity and location technologies -- used in devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs -- by the end of this year, for $310 million.

Italian bank shares were unmoved on the Milan stock market on Tuesday despite action by Moody's ratings agency to downgrade 13 lenders following its sovereign rating downgrade for Italy last week.

Italy's biggest bank, UniCredit, inched up slightly by 0.1 percent after its rating was cut by two notches to Baa2 from A3.

Two Korean finance firms have submitted bids to buy parts of the Asian operations of Dutch banking giant ING Group, reports said Monday.

Korea Life Insurance, the country's second-largest life insurer, has bid for ING's Southeast Asian operations, which cover Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand, Dow Jones Newswires said.