UNITED KINGDOM

British construction group Balfour Beatty has agreed to buy U.S. project management firm Parsons Brinckerhoff for $626 million, and will ask shareholders to help fund the deal, it said on Thursday.

Commercials director Daniel Barber calls his feature debut, Harry Brown, an urban Western, which suggests the film's allure and its problem.

The founders of Skype have sued owner eBay Inc and an investor group that has agreed to buy the Webphone service, accusing them of copyright violation and potentially disrupting the $1.9 billion deal.

Construction and engineering group Balfour Beatty is in advanced talks regarding a significant acquisition and is mulling a rights issue to fund a deal analysts expect will involve a U.S. or British firm.

The Australian Dollar opens sharply higher on Thursday at 0.8725 on greenback weakness and a continuation of the recent shift into high-yielding assets.

The founders of Skype are suing its owner eBay Inc and the investor group that has agreed to buy the Internet telephone service, alleging theft of technology, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The European Union will support maintaining policies that poured trillions of dollars into economies and call on a G20 meeting for progress on trade talks to help boost a recovery, a draft policy document said.

Britain plans to update laws on defamation dating back to the 19th century to make them more suitable for the Internet age, the ministry of justice said on Wednesday.

Three of London's top rainmakers are set to square up against a superstar of the 1980s merger era if the looming takeover battle between Kraft and Cadbury ignites.

Is melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer, on the rise, as is often reported? Maybe not, says a new study: The melanoma epidemic may simply represent a change in how doctors are diagnosing the disease.

The Australian Dollar opens higher today at 0.8625 and is buoyed by improved risk sentiment after the release of stronger than expected U.S. economic data overnight.

Interest in U.S. real estate by international buyers declined due to the worldwide recession and severe credit crunch, according to the 2009 National Association of Realtors Profile of International Home Buying Activity.

British star Clive Owen has specialized in playing macho men in two decades of movies and television: tough, taciturn and unshaven, with long stares from smoldering gray-green eyes.

Lotus, one of the most successful and glorious names from Formula One's past, will return next year with a Malaysian-owned team replacing BMW-Sauber as the 13th entry on the starting grid.

Lloyds Banking Group topped the list for complaints to a consumer watchdog in the first half of the year with payment protection insurance drawing over a quarter of all cases in the finance sector.

Italian engineering company Trevi Finanziaria Industriale's order portfolio could rise to 1.2 billion euros ($1.7 billion) by the end of the year, driven by emerging markets, its CFO said on Tuesday.

Real estate equity funds dominated Lipper's ranking of top-performing funds in August, as expectations of an impending property market recovery prompted a rally in European property stocks. Of the top 20 UK-registered equity funds ranked by fund tracker Lipper, a unit of Thomson Reuters, 11 were real estate funds of which nine are invested in the UK or Europe.

German carmaker Opel needs to cut capacity and workforce quickly to return to profitability, but any decision on restructuring the company would not be driven by political considerations, Opel Chairman Carl-Peter Forster said on Tuesday.

Cash-strapped South Korean automaker Ssangyong Motor (003620.KS) proposed a capital writedown on Tuesday that would slash the stake of SAIC Motor (600104.SS), its Chinese majority shareholder.

Capital One Financial Corp's U.S. credit-card defaults fell in August, reinforcing signs that, despite job losses and the housing crisis, American consumers may not be in as bad shape as feared.

Climate change could cost some countries up to 19 percent of their gross domestic product by 2030, a panel including major insurance, banking and consulting companies as well as the European Commission said on Monday.