IBT Staff Reporter

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been forced to cancel a trip to Geneva for a United Nations meeting this week after his wife and some of his aides were denied visas, state media said on Wednesday.

Freddie Mac's chief executive, Charles E. Ed Haldeman Jr, will step down by the end of the year, the regulator of the company said on Wednesday.

Ford Motor Co posted a lower third-quarter profit after taking a hit from plunging metals prices and sustaining losses in its European and Asian operations.

New British banking venture NBNK has submitted a bid proposal for Northern Rock, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, putting NBNK in competition with Virgin Money for the nationalised British bank.

Pakistan's security service provides weapons and training to Taliban insurgents fighting U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan, despite official denials, Taliban commanders say, in allegations that could worsen tensions between Pakistan and the United States.

Stocks rose on Wednesday as details from the European summit to resolve the debt crisis began to emerge.

The National Security Agency, a secretive arm of the U.S. military, has begun providing Wall Street banks with intelligence on foreign hackers, a sign of growing U.S. fears of financial sabotage.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc fell 11 percent on Wednesday, a day after the company forecast a disappointing outlook for the current quarter on costs related to Kindle and other investments to grow the company.

An Egyptian court jailed two policemen on Wednesday for seven years for their cruel treatment of an activist whose death helped kindle the popular revolt against Hosni Mubarak.

The Eurozone aims to leverage its 440 billion euro bailout fund, the EFSF, several fold but finance ministers will only agree the details of how that will be done in November, according to a draft statement to be issued after a summit on Wednesday.

After a three year delay, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes its first commercial voyage from Narita airport in Tokyo to Hong Kong.

Stocks briefly added to gains in afternoon trading on Wednesday as a draft statement obtained by Reuters said the euro zone aims to leverage its 440 billion euro bailout fund, the EFSF, several fold.

We are born pre-wired for mental illness

Sitting in his empty seafood restaurant in Sudan's historic port of Suakin, Hashem Abdullah is dreaming of better times -- particularly the hope that foreign tourists will one day visit his run-down hometown.

U.S. packaging company Bemis Co.'s third-quarter earnings slipped 9 percent from the prior-year period as customers who use the company's packaging products faced lower sales volumes and tightened their purse strings.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was expected to name Interior Minister Prince Nayef as his heir after a mourning period for Crown Prince Sultan ends on Thursday, formalising a smooth succession in the world's biggest oil-producer.

Israel's help for earthquake-struck Turkey is a purely humanitarian gesture, both countries said on Wednesday, playing down prospects of their troubled relations being on the mend.

German Chancellor Angel Merkel won a parliamentary vote with a large majority on Wednesday on boosting the firepower of the euro zone rescue fund, handing her a strong mandate to negotiate at a crunch EU summit later in the day in Brussels.

Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director and former global head of McKinsey & Co, was arrested on Wednesday on criminal charges related to his hedge fund manager friend Raj Rajaratnam, the central figure in a U.S. crackdown on insider trading.

The incoming head of the European Central Bank threw the euro zone a lifeline hours before a crucial summit on Wednesday by signalling the bank would go on buying troubled states' bonds to combat market turmoil.

A top member of Cambodia's former Khmer Rouge regime on Wednesday said he would not take the stand during his long-awaited trial, marking a setback for a country seeking closure from one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.

The Palestinians will seek a vote on their bid for full membership of UNESCO next week, Foreign Minister Riyal al-Malki said on Wednesday, despite what he called U.S. threats to pull funding from the U.N. cultural agency.

Stocks were little changed on Wednesday on caution about the outcome of a European summit to resolve the debt crisis and mixed corporate results.

Olympus Corp head Tsuyoshi Kikukawa resigned on Wednesday after a scandal over hefty advisory fees wiped out half of the 92-year-old firm's market value while his successor stuck with the company's line that it had done nothing wrong.

British singer Amy Winehouse had more than five times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her blood when she died on July 23 aged 27, British media reported on Wednesday.

Stocks were little changed on Wednesday on caution about the outcome of a European summit to resolve the debt crisis and mixed corporate results.

Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament approved a motion to strengthen the euro zone rescue fund via leveraging on Wednesday, providing Chancellor Angela Merkel with the mandate she needs to negotiate at a key euro summit later in Brussels.

Iran's parliament has dropped a summons calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in for questioning, Iranian media reported on Wednesday, signalling an uneasy truce after months of political struggle between rival conservative factions.

Ireland is hoping to capitalise on any deal to increase the firepower of the euro zone's rescue fund on Wednesday to reduce its own debt burden, Prime Minister Enda Kenny told the country's parliament.