China has pledged to make the most sweeping changes to the economy and the country's social fabric in nearly three decades with a 60-point reform plan that may start showing results within weeks. Some financial and fiscal reforms are likely to be the first out of the blocks, analysts said, but more wrenching changes such as land reform, reining in the power of state-behemoths, and a more universal social welfare system may take years as the Communist Party leaders balance reorganizing the economy with a need to maintain stability.

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, unveiled the first big package of liberalising reforms in years on Monday, making overtures to the large Kurdish minority and proposing that headscarved women be allowed to sit in parliament and work as civil servants for the first time in the history of the Turkish republic.