IBT Staff Reporter

An OECD report due for release this month will say markets and governments face an uphill struggle to fund themselves next year amid extreme uncertainty over the euro zone and the global economy, the Financial Times said on Monday.

Zhang Yimou, one of China's best-known directors, is banking on heartthrob Christian Bale to help boost the country's chances of winning an Oscar, with his latest film on a tragic chapter in the nation's history.

Contents of the mansion where Michael Jackson's lifeless body was found by convicted killer Dr. Conrad Murray go under the auction hammer next week, closing one chapter on a tragic saga that started in 2009 and ended last month with his former physician behind bars.

Alec Baldwin dropped in on Saturday Night Live this weekend for a skit mocking the airline industry, issuing a fake apology from a pilot who kicked him off an American Airlines flight for playing a smart-phone game before departure.

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced Friday night that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Big Four broadcast networks on a new network TV code deal.

Olympus said on Monday it was preparing to file its July-September earnings by December 14, a necessary step for the disgraced 92-year-old firm to remain listed.

An early New Year's Eve led the weekend box office charts as movie audiences turned to the holiday romance over new comedy The Sitter.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which took a typically idiosyncratic path with its 2011 awards, has named Alexander Payne's The Descendants the best film of the year.

The Artist, a black-and-white silent film about Hollywood, drama The Descendants, Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese and Terrence Malick all won big on Sunday among U.S. film critics and industry groups that doled out honors for the year's best movies.

Undercover police officers infiltrated Occupy LA's tent city last month to spy on people they suspected of stockpiling human waste and crude weapons for resisting an eventual eviction, police and city government sources said.

Romantic comedy New Year's Eve topped the domestic movie box office during the weekend but Hollywood had little to celebrate as North American ticket sales slumped to their lowest level in three years.

A former Death Row Records vice president, John Atterberry, remains in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, one of several victims caught Friday in a Hollywood street rampage conducted by a distraught 26-year-old gunman.

Canada posted an unexpected trade deficit in October, reflecting economic problems in the United States and Europe and paving the way for lower growth in the fourth quarter, Statistics Canada data indicated on Friday.

Germany's largest utility E.On has recruited Goldman Sachs to run a sale of its gas distribution network in a move that could raise up to 2.5 billion euros to help pay down its debts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Whitehaven Coal has agreed to take over Aston Resources and another miner in a $3 billion deal to create Australia's biggest independent coal miner, looking for scale as it taps into booming Asian coal demand.

An agreement reached by European countries for deeper economic integration was a step in the right direction but not a complete solution for the euro zone's debt crisis, International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard said on Sunday.

Shares of TripAdvisor, the largest Internet travel site, will likely trade well after the business is spun off from Expedia, Barron's financial newspaper said in its Dec 12 edition.

The defense budget is shrinking, but General Dynamics Corp still sees growing demand for its combat vehicles and warships, coupled with unprecedented opportunities to sell its popular Gulfstream business jets in China and other emerging markets.

Online spending remained strong in early December, a period that usually marks a lull in the U.S. holiday shopping frenzy, comScore said on Sunday.

Investors could reap gains of 15 percent to 20 percent next year by buying top-quality stocks such as MetLife, Comcast Corp and Berkshire Hathaway , Barron's said in its Dec 12 edition.

Retailers are coming up with ways to make the gift card - that staple of holiday giving - more exciting to receive, from including a set of Lego blocks to putting images of popular paintings on the plastic cards.

On a recent morning inside a crowded town hall, auctioneer Jeffrey Obrecht sold off a sliver of western Iowa farmland barely wider than a football field.

Kazakh miner ENRC is examining existing allegations of corruption at a Kazakh iron ore subsidiary but denied on Sunday that it was the subject of a formal investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office .

On top of euro-zone debt troubles, Wall Street now has to worry about sagging sales from Europe as a recession in the region seems more likely.

BMW plans to boost its U.S. sales by a quarter in the medium term, the head of the automaker's U.S. business told a German magazine.

Inspectors for Greece's international lenders and private creditors kick off a round of meetings with the government on Monday to prepare for a new 130-billion euro ($173.75 billion) bailout plan and bond swap scheme to keep the country afloat.

Swiss and U.S. officials have met in recent days in Berne, Switzerland, to try to end a long-running dispute over wealthy Americans using secret Swiss accounts to dodge taxes, and they seem to be getting closer to a deal, two newspapers reported Sunday.

Swiss and U.S. officials have met in recent days in Berne to try to end a long-running dispute over wealthy Americans using secret Swiss accounts to dodge taxes, and seem to be getting closer to a deal, two newspapers reported on Sunday.

An agreement reached by European countries for deeper economic integration was a step in the right direction but not a complete solution for the Eurozone's debt crisis, International Monetary Fund Economic Counsellor Olivier Blanchard said Sunday.