UNITED KINGDOM

Investment bankers have been villified by the public since the financial crisis, and regulators are cracking down on their pay, but Britain's university graduates still aspire to become them. At the country's top universities, the generation of students who started their degree just as Lehman Brothers collapsed are still pursuing lucrative

A legal tussle between defunct Lehman Brothers and investors in highly complex debt vehicles has drawn attention from financial professionals and British football clubs alike.

Western companies flush with cash but reluctant to commit to longer-term investments spent heavily on advertising in 2010 and especially on TV, boosting the world's biggest ad group WPP in the U.S. and Britain.

Sony Corp said on Friday shipments of its PlayStation 3 game consoles were being seized by customs officers in the Netherlands following a court injunction initiated by LG Electronics over a patent dispute.

BP's $7.2-billion deal to jump into India's oil and gas sector with Reliance Industries is the first sign of new investment that could attract more players, helping to boost output and meet surging demand.

Growth in the service sectors in the United States and Europe hit its highest in five years in February, suggesting economic growth is accelerating though inflationary pressures are building.

The DreamWorks studio has optioned movie rights to a pair of books about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his controversial Website that is bent on revealing government secrets, company officials said on Thursday.

A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online.

Muammar Gaddafi struck at rebel control of a key Libyan coastal road for a second day on Thursday but received a warning he would be held to account at The Hague for suspected crimes by his security forces.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has reportedly accepted an offer of mediation from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez while an opposition group has rejected it, according to a report.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has launched an appeal against a ruling that he should be extradited from Britain to Sweden over alleged sex crimes, his lawyer said on Thursday.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp took a huge step toward securing its prized $14 billion buyout of satellite broadcaster BSkyB when Britain accepted its proposals to ease competition concerns.

Gold and Silver Bullion prices fell sharply London lunchtime on Thursday, bouncing 1.5% and 2.3% below this week's record Dollar highs after European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said a Eurozone rate rise is possible next month.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp took a huge step toward securing its prized $14 billion buyout of BSkyB when Britain accepted its proposals to alleviate competition concerns.

The irony can't be missed when the scion of a tiny sub-Saharan country, which has the dubious distinction for having the highest child mortality rate in the world and abysmal public health and education systems, splurges ill-gotten money on a multi-million dollar super-luxury yacht.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.7 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.6 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.7 percent at 5.23 a.m. EST.

The Ministry of Defense United Kingdom has released thousands of files with details of UFO sightings and an alien abduction previously classified files documenting sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by the military and members of the public dating back to the 1950s.

Britain may approve News Corp's $12.5 billion buy-out of BSkyB this week, two sources familiar with the situation said on Wednesday, forcing Rupert Murdoch's group to spin off TV news channel Sky News.

Britain, France and Tunisia have started airlift thousands of Egyptians stuck at the Libya-Tunisia border to safety in Cairo, in response to pleas from the United Nations (UN) to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

A Northern Ireland software company that supplies services to major financial institutions said on Wednesday it was creating 360 new jobs, a rare piece of good news in an economy squeezed by public services cuts. First Derivatives, based in the border city of Newry and currently employing 550 people, is to expand using 4.3 million

Ghana will receive its first payment for oil flows later this month, the country's finance minister said on Wednesday after parliament passed a long-delayed oil revenue management bill in a unanimous vote.