UNITED STATES

Britain's Cadbury Plc said it has received interest from other bidders after raising its growth targets and reporting upbeat trading as it dismissed a 10 billion pound ($16.5 billion) bid from Kraft Foods .

Stock index futures pointed to a higher opening on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.59 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.39 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.49 percent.

A report says that 38 percent of all U.S. stock trading is now done by firms that have naked sponsored access to markets, the controversial trading practice said to imperil the marketplace, and which faces a regulatory crackdown.

A Thai court on Monday extended the detention of the crew of a seized cargo aircraft loaded with 35 tonnes of arms from North Korea as its unscheduled arrival in Bangkok stirred questions over illicit-weapons trade.

Asian stocks eased on Monday as the dollar hovered near six-week highs on views the Federal Reserve might raise rates sooner than expected, putting pressure on oil and commodity prices.

Citigroup is nearing a deal with the U.S. government that would allow it to pay back its bailout money, several reports said on Sunday.

Privately-held real estate company Fairfield Residential LLC filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday, saying that the collapse of the U.S. real estate and capital markets has made it difficult to continue without restructuring.

If a currency represents a country's standing on the global stage, then China has been poorly represented until now.

To all extents and purposes, 2009 is over for investors and the coming week will be dominated by the issues of 2010.

Warehouses holding everything from beer kegs to frozen chickens crowd the roadside along Highway 146 south of Houston, and a ferocious building boom is adding acres more, thanks to an even bigger project 1,800 miles away in Panama.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp Chief Executive Robert Kelly is the front-runner to succeed retiring Bank of America Corp CEO Kenneth Lewis, but compensation issues could get in the way of a deal, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday, citing people familiar with the situation.

Citigroup is nearing a deal with the U.S. government that would allow it to pay back some of its bailout money, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Aussie dollar was unable to hold onto momentum gained by Thursday's stellar employment report peaking near 92 cents during Friday's European session.

The Federal Reserve has done all it can do to reduce unemployment and needs to worry more about the risk of inflation from the stimulus it poured into the economy, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Sunday.

The Federal Reserve, at a meeting this week, will likely close out the year by repeating a pledge to keep interest rates extraordinarily low for an extended period even as it nods to signs of economic healing.

Cadbury and U.S. rival Hershey have held talks over a possible friendly bid by the American firm, the Sunday Telegraph reported, citing market sources.

North Korea and the United States have agreed to resume suspended four-way talks to replace the tattered Korean War armistice with a permanent peace accord, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Sunday.

Environment ministers tried to overcome rifts between rich and developing nations in Copenhagen on Sunday just days before a deadline for reaching a global pact on tackling climate change.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met at an Afghan air base on Sunday, aiming to fix a relationship that has grown bitter as the Afghan war grows deadlier and more unpopular.

Kuwait's sale of its stake in Citigroup earlier this month was not due to a dispute with the U.S. bank, the Gulf Arab state's finance minister said in published remarks on Sunday.

Critics said the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq said was driven by oil, but United States oil majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.