A U.S. State Department spokeswoman confirms this morning that activist Chen Guangcheng wants to leave China with his family. Our partner the BBC is reporting that the dissident has asked to leave China on the same plane as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is in Beijing for high level talks. Joining us is Mickey Bristow, Beijing Correspondent for the BBC.

A blockbuster scandal has surfaced in Beijing as the Communist Party attempts to pass the political torch to new leaders. The death of a British businessman in a Chongqing hotel room was declared a murder yesterday, and the wife of Bo Xilai, one of China's most powerful men, is the lead suspect. Michael Bristow is correspondent for our partner the BBC.

According to a spokesman for UN envoy Kofi Annan, Syria has accepted a United Nations plan to end bloodshed in the country. The plan includes a daily two-hour ceasefire by Syrian security forces to evacuate the injured and provide humanitarian aid. This plan comes as President Bashar al-Assad has traveled to the besieged Baba Amr neighborhood to inspect conditions. Michael Bristow is a correspondent for our partner the BBC.

China celebrates its 90^th year of Communist rule today; but in the background, the nation is playing deeply capitalist games with international debts. China owns a large portion of US debt, but a Reuters investigation shows that they may have more than the Treasury could previously report. By buying up US debt through internationally disparate financial intermediaries, Chinese entities hid exactly how much US debt they had acquired—estimates say it is above $1.13 trillion. 

 

Google has moved it's service out of China is redirecting users to it's Hong Kong-based service where the laws are different.  BBC correspondent, Michael Bristow, joins us from China, where he's trying to use Google to search for some of the more sensitive terms and coming up blank.

Today the World Bank is raising its forecast for China's economic growth this year. Strong government investment and increased domestic demand have helped supported the growth of China's economy. For more, we turn to the BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing.