IBT Staff Reporter

Demand for a range of long- lasting U.S. manufactured goods rose more than expected in September to post the largest increase in six months, cementing views of a step-up in economic growth in the third quarter, even though new orders for transportation equipment fell.

Stock index futures rose on Wednesday after the S&P fell 2 percent in the previous session as optimism about corporate earnings offset concerns about an upcoming meeting of European leaders to tackle the region's debt crisis.

Reuters - Gains in defensive stocks helped the FTSE 100 higher on Wednesday, with markets set to remain reactive to snippets leaking out of a European summit where investors hope the continent's leaders will agree a plan to tackle the debt crisis.

Emergency workers rescued a 27-year-old woman alive from a collapsed building on Wednesday, three days after an earthquake killed more than 400 people in eastern Turkey, but hopes of finding more survivors faded and some teams were suspending searches.

Fujitsu Ltd <6702.T> said its quarterly operating profit fell 35 percent, dragged down by losses in its devices business, sluggish IT spending in Japan and a strong yen, but it stuck to its full-year profit forecast on hopes for a pickup in IT spending in the October-March period.

Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's No.2 PC maker, said on Wednesday that it expected some constraints on hard disk drive supplies through the first quarter of next year after severe floods in Thailand crimped global supply.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe 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.

Investors stayed cautious ahead of a summit expected to deliver pledges to tackle the euro zone's debt crisis rather than firm commitments, keeping the euro above $1.39 as stocks markets traded little changed.

Nokia unveiled its long-awaited first Microsoft Windows phones on Wednesday, betting on the two sleek new models to get it back into the race with Apple and Google.

Stock index futures rose on Wednesday after the S&P fell 2 percent in the previous session as optimism about corporate earnings offset concerns about the results of a meeting of European leaders to tackle the region's debt crisis.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi goes to the European Union Wednesday with an offer of economic reforms after bickering coalition parties hammered out a last-minute deal.

Carrying its first paying passengers on Wednesday, the Boeing Co Dreamliner, the world's first carbon-composite airliner, flew to Hong Kong Wednesday from Tokyo.

Japan's scandal-hit Olympus Corp said its chairman and president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa has stepped down due to a series of media reports on the company's problems and a plunge in its share price.

At least 10 Afghan civilians were killed and 35 wounded on a road near a major U.S. base after a small bomb punctured a hole in the side of a fuel tanker that was later engulfed by a large blaze, eyewitnesses and officials said on Wednesday.

Some shops in the Thai capital began imposing emergency rationing on Wednesday as anxious residents stockpiled food and other necessities, with Bangkok under threat of inundation for weeks to come.

More democracy is bringing more political Islam in the countries of the Arab Spring, but Islamist statements about sharia or religion in politics are only rough indicators of what the real effect might be.

Applications for home mortgages rose last week, recouping some of the steep decline a week before as demand for both purchases and refinancing perked up, an industry group said on Wednesday.

A proposal to appoint a Commonwealth human rights commissioner to steer a more proactive rights agenda looks set to test a summit this week as the 54 member nations try to make more of a mark in world affairs.

Societe Generale could turn to its own shareholders if it ever needed to raise additional capital and has no need for government funds, its chief executive said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

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, but his successor stuck with the company's line that it had done nothing wrong.

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

HONG KONG/NEW YORK - China is expected to steer clear of Europe's bailout fund and its investment vehicles as regulators and politicians scramble to pull together a plan aimed at expanding the debt clean-up.

Britain's biggest mobile operator Everything Everywhere posted lower revenue in the third quarter due to regulatory cuts but said its customer base was stabilising while it was also making good progress in cost-cutting.

When ministers, officials, tech executives, Internet activists and security experts meet in London next week to discuss the management of cyberspace, they will be taking some of the first steps down a very long road.

European stock index futures fell on Wednesday, after Asian shares traded lower for most part on growing concerns that the outcome from a key meeting of European policymakers to contain the debt crisis may fall short of expectations.

BAA reported a 17 percent rise in earnings in the first nine months of the year, helped by strong traffic growth, especially at London's Heathrow airport.

In light of his landslide win in the Ohio straw poll last weekend, should Ron Paul get more attention as a viable contender for the Republican presidential nomination?

SAP said it would consider buying back shares to return cash to shareholders, sparking a skeptical response from analysts who said they would rather see the world's biggest maker of business software spend money on acquisitions.

Olympus Corp Chairman and President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa stepped down on Wednesday in response to a widening scandal over dubious acquisition deals, as sources said Japan's securities watchdog was looking into the 92-year-old firm's past dealings.