UNITED KINGDOM

The U.S. Treasury is expected to propose within days the creation of a systemic risk regulator, probably the Federal Reserve, to oversee banking and market problems that could threaten the economy.

Sudan's president said on Monday he wanted foreign aid groups to stop distributing aid in Sudan within a year, in an escalation in the country's defiant response to an international war crimes warrant against him.

No one yet has any real idea about when the global financial crisis will end, but one thing is certain: government budget deficits are headed into the stratosphere. Investors in the coming years will need to be persuaded to hold mountains of new debt.

Goldman Sachs and a parade of major European banks, including Deutsche Bank , France's Societe Generale and the UK's Barclays , were major beneficiaries of more than $90 billion of money paid out by AIG in the first three-and-a-half months after its bailout by the U.S. government last September.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc and a parade of European banks were the major beneficiaries of $93 billion in payments from AIG -- more than half of the U.S. taxpayer money spent to rescue the massive insurer.

Pakistan's government agreed on Monday to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice in a surprise move to defuse a crisis and end agitation by lawyers and activists that had threatened to turn into violent confrontation.

The Dow and S&P 500 stock indexes rose on Monday, extending their recovery from 12-year lows reached this month, as investors became more hopeful that some stabilization may be returning to the banking sector.

The Dow and S&P 500 stock indexes rose on Monday, extending their recovery from 12-year lows reached this month, as investors became more hopeful that some stabilization may be returning to the banking sector.

Stocks on Monday were set to extend their recovery from 12-year lows reached earlier this month after Britain's Barclays became the latest bank to buoy hopes that some stabilization may be returning in banking.

Stock futures rose on Monday, putting Wall Street on course to extend its recovery from 12-year lows reached earlier this month, after Britain's Barclays became the latest bank to buoy hopes that some stabilization may be returning in banking.

Switzerland's UBS, the world's largest wealth management company in terms of assets, proposed three new candidates to its board of directors on Monday.

Shabana Ahmadzai, 19, and Sara Bahmanpour, 20, like to hang out on a social network a fraction the size of Facebook. Their portraits enhanced by makeup or anime images, the women are logging on at Muxlim, a lifestyle community for Muslims.

Australia on Monday extended its review of Chinese aluminum maker Chinalco's $19.5 billion investment in global miner Rio Tinto, as major Rio shareholders voiced growing concern over the deal.

German Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said on Sunday he hoped General Motors and the U.S. government would help answer remaining questions on a plan to save German unit Opel.

WASHINGTON - U.S. business leaders urged lawmakers on Thursday to act quickly on healthcare reform, saying American companies were losing out to other countries with cheaper healthcare and healthier workers.

The Treasury will offer more details in the coming week about how proposed public-private partnerships to take bad assets off banks' books will work, a senior department official said on Saturday.

More spending will give only a brief sugar high if G20 nations fail to clean up their banks, the World Bank said on Friday as economic powers struggled to agree a response to the worst downturn in decades.

Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg offered to relax strict bank secrecy in some tax evasion cases on Friday in a response to a global crackdown on tax havens that is rattling the offshore banking industry.

Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg offered to relax strict bank secrecy in some tax evasion cases on Friday in a response to a global crackdown on tax havens that is rattling the offshore banking industry.

Britain's main suspect in the London murder of dissident Alexander Litvinenko is likely to run for mayor in the Russian city hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics, according to an announcement by his party on Friday.

Japan joined the U.S. push for more government spending to fight the economic crisis on Friday but G20 unity looked seriously compromised after Paris accused Washington of disregarding the urgent need for tough market regulation.