Louis Vuitton has expanded rapidly in China, and has more than 40 stores, including cities in central and western regions.

FORBES: Once Hot, Luxury Stores Think Twice On China

The State Council also pointed to a big wealth gap between the urban and rural regions and vowed to provide more fiscal support for the less developed central and western regions of the country.

WSJ: China to Make State Firms Turn Over More Profits

Data on the property sector show that despite double-digit declines in property sales, investment remains resilient nationwide and picked up as expected in the poorer central and western regions rather than along the expensive, and built-out coastlines in cities like Shanghai.

FORBES: China Still On Track To Beat Government's 7.5% Target

The Sunnis, based predominantly in Iraq's central and western regions, are promised that oil and gas revenues will be shared between provinces largely on the basis of population and not grabbed by the Shia south and the Kurdish north, where most of the reserves are.

ECONOMIST: An Iraqi tragedy raises sectarian tension | The

The report notes that "there is no commonly accepted explanation by criminologists for the fall in violence in many of the world's regions including the US, Western Europe, Eastern and Central Europe, as well as the UK".

BBC: The riddle of peacefulness

G8 leaders cannot ignore the signs that small-arms proliferation has made a mockery of state authority in many parts of the developing and ex-communist worlds, including regions, such as Central America and the Balkans, which are uncomfortably close to comfortable western homes.

ECONOMIST: Hey, anybody want a gun?

Coming as such disengagement does - at the very moment that dangers to those interests in regions from the Middle East to North Africa to Central, South and East Asia to the Western hemisphere, the administration must be held accountable for creating (whether intentionally or simply as a practical matter) dangerous vacuums of power.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy