17

Shenzhou 8, a Chinese spacecraft capsule landed in the Gobi desert late on Thursday (Beijing time), having spent just under 17 days in orbit in total, the longest Shenzhou mission to date.

BBC

33/70

Of the 70 cities whose house prices were monitored in October, 33 showed an overall drop in home prices. The largest overall drop was Wenzhou, where prices fell by an average of 4.6%. 

Bloomberg

213 billion

An estimated 213 billion barrels of oil are at stakes in the current territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China and the Philippines both claim the Spratly Islands as their own. The Philippines has called for the South China Sea territorial disputes to be discussed in multilateral talks with many nations in the area. China has so far rejected such an approach.

 Bloomberg

2,500

Under a new agreement between U.S. President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, 2,500 US marines will be based in Darwin, a city on the North Coast of Australia. Obama claims this is a response to the wishes of its democratic allies in the region. The agreement angered China, which accused the U.S. of escalating tensions in the region.

New York Times