China's claims that Rio staff have stolen state secrets are not unfounded, remarked Jonathan Barratt, MD at Commodity Broking Services. He tells Professor David Kelly of the University of Technology Sydney & CNBC's Karen Tso more.

China's top brass recognizes the need to avoid unnecessary tension with its major commodity suppliers, says Qu Hong Bin, senior economist at HSBC Global Markets, as he discusses China's reliance on resources to feed its economy. He talks to CNBC's Martin Soong.

Thomas Kaegi, head of macroeconomic research, Asia Pacific at UBS Wealth Mgmt is quite surprised by how optimistic the BoK's new forecast for the economy is, as he still expects 2009 GDP to fall 4%. He tells CNBC's Amanda Drury, Adam Bakhtiar & Martin Soong more.

Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey sheds more light on the proposed joint venture deal with America's Delta Air Lines on routes in the Pacific region, and tells CNBC's Oriel Morrison whether a full merger is in the works.

Lorraine Tan, VP of Asia equity research at Standard & Poor's sees more upside for Hong Kong and China markets and has raised her target for the two benchmarks by about 10%.