Geetha Pillai

Lloyds, 40 per cent owned by the government after a state bailout during the 2008 financial crisis, reported on Friday an annual loss of 3.54 billion pounds, having made a profit of 281 million in 2010.

Lloyds will bear brunt of writedowns and restructuring costs, as it sells non-core businesses and cuts thousands of jobs.

The move is expected to increase anger that the bank is still paying large salaries while thousands, including more than 30,000 layoffs at the bank in the last three years, lose their jobs in a weakening global economy.

In a much anticipated decision, EU finance ministers have reached an agreement on the second bailout of 130 billion euros.

European Union finance ministers will meet in Brussels to finalise Greece's second bail out deal.

Medical supplies are running out and at least three field hospitals have been hit. Rooms are full of corpses while in the streets, wounded people are bleeding to death as it is too dangerous for rescuers to bring them to safety.

'Friends of Democratic Syria' would look at tightening sanctions on Syrian government and getting humanitarian aid through.

Republican candidate reinvigorates campaign against frontrunner Mitt Romney with triple victory.

Leaders of the three parties in Prime Minister Lucas Papademos's coalition postpone crunch meeting.

Bombardment of Homs on eve of visit by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov as world powers scramble for diplomatic strategy.

Win caps remarkable late-season turnaround for Giants to win second Super Bowl in four years.

The touchdown capped a Super Bowl-tying 96-yard scoring drive by the Patriots, who overcame a sluggish start that put them behind 9-0 in the first quarter.

The high-level diplomatic setback came after world leaders and Syrian opposition activists accused Assad's forces of a massacre in a sustained shelling of Homs, the bloodiest episode in 11 months of upheaval in the pivotal Arab country.

The victory was Romney's second in a row and his third in the first five contests in the state-by-state battle to find a Republican challenger to President Barack Obama in November's general election.

More than 200 people were killed in shelling by Syrian forces in the city of Homs, activists said on Saturday, as the U.N. Security Council prepared to vote on a draft resolution backing an Arab call for President Bashar al-Assad to give up power.

Federal prosecutors focus for first tiFederal prosecutors focus for first time on overseas bank in $1.2bn tax fraud investigation into offshore accounts.me on overseas bank in tax fraud allegations.

Seventy-four people die after violent scenes and pitch invasion at football match in Port Said.

Mitt Romney cruises to victory in Florida with 47 percent of the votes to Gingrich's 32 percent in largest Republican presidential nominating contest.

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney maintains double-digit lead in most polls in Florida and hits out at 'sad' rival Newt Gingrich.

With just three days remaining before Florida's Republican primary, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, led Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, by 43 percent to 32 percent among likely voters in Florida's January 31 primary, according to Reuters/Ipsos online poll results on Saturday.

Exxon and TonenGeneral aim to complete the deal around summer, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

David Cameron says Doha world trade talks dead and urges 'coalition of the willing' with bilateral deals between countries.

Those on more than $1m a year would pay at least 30% and their tax deductions would be eliminated under Obama's plan.

Japan logged a trade deficit of 2.49 trillion yen ($32 billion) for 2011, Ministry of Finance data showed on Wednesday, the first annual deficit since 1980.

Vodafone, challenging the tax bill over its $11 billion deal to buy Hutchison Whampoa Ltd's Indian mobile business in 2007, had appealed to the Supreme Court after losing the case in the Bombay High Court in 2010.

Gingrich came under attack frequently in the debate of almost two hours and deftly defended himself with the kind of strong debate performance that has buoyed his up-and-down campaign all year.

Sites participating in Wikipedia-planned blackout urge users to put pressure on legislators.

The IMF currently has a lending capacity of about $380 billion and estimates demand could be about $1 trillion in the medium-term.

Yang's abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, with a mandate to return the once-leading Internet portal to the heights it enjoyed in the 1990s.