IBT Staff Reporter

Outgoing European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet called on Monday for euro zone authorities to have greater powers over the economic policies of the bloc's errant members, setting out a vision for a closer-knit currency area.

Caterpillar Inc far exceeded analyst expectations on Monday, reporting a 44 percent quarterly earnings increase due to record revenue, and the company signaled optimism in its 2012 outlook.

Stocks rose on Monday, adding to three weeks of gains by the S&P 500, after strong earnings from Caterpillar and some proposed acquisitions boosted investor sentiment.

Angela Merkel's supporters praised her for getting France to drop demands to use the European Central Bank to leverage euro crisis funds, but looked like making a meal out of the German parliament's new right to be consulted on how these are used.

Caterpillar Inc far exceeded analyst expectations on Monday, reporting a 44 percent quarterly earnings increase due to record revenue, and the company signaled optimism in its 2012 outlook.

The Ghana cedi continues to extend gains made late last week and could pursue the upward trend if the central bank and mining sector keep supplying the market with dollars, traders said.

Members of National Nurses United are rallying outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office after police arrested two nurses and a union organizer at an Occupy Chicago protest in Grant Park on Saturday.

The International Monetary Fund hailed the medium-term outlook for Ghana's oil-fueled economy as positive on Monday, but warned it would have to rein in public finances to keep the public deficit under control.

South Africa's rand turned positive against the dollar in volatile late Monday trade, gaining as much as 2.3 percent to a week's high in what some traders said was a retracement from oversold levels last week.

East African Breweries Ltd said on Monday that the sale of its 20 percent stake in brewing giant SABMiller's Tanzanian unit, expected to raise 121.5 billion shillings was delayed indefinitely.

The new biography of deceased Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs may be Amazon.com Inc's top-selling book of 2011, a spokeswoman at the largest Internet retailer said on Monday.

Burundi police killed four gunmen after a heavy exchange of fire, a police officer said on Monday, the latest in a series of violent incidents that raise concerns about a new insurgency in the coffee-producing nation.

Nigeria's military said on Monday they had detained a small oil tanker and arrested 46 people trying to ship illegally refined oil products, pursuing a fight against an underground industry worth hundred of millions of dollars a year.

Dubai-based City Energy & Infrastructure LLC plans to build a copper smelter and sugar plant in Tanzania over the next three years at a total investment of $500 million, a senior company official said on Monday.

South African stocks closed at their highest level in nearly three months as demand for resources firms rose with hope that European Union leaders will agree on a solution to their region's debt woes later this week.

Moderate Islamists said on Monday their party appeared to be ahead in Tunisia's first free election since an uprising earlier this year that set off the Arab Spring revolts, hinting at a shift in a country long known for its secularism.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro denounced NATO on Monday for its role in the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, saying the brutal military alliance has become the most perfidious instrument of repression the history of humanity has known.

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative force behind Chanel for nearly 30 years, is launching a fashion brand under his own name with backing from private equity firm Apax in a bid to tap into the Internet retail market.

Libya's interim rulers ended the public display of the bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son and army chief on Monday after four days in which thousands of Libyans came to see for themselves that the dictator was really dead.

Chord Overstreet will return to Glee for a multi-episode arc, Fox announced Monday.

Janet Jackson is putting her Australian tour on hold and returning to the United States to be with her family in the midst of the trial of her brother Michael's doctor.

The airline industry is handing out barf bags to passengers and lawmakers as part of a major advertising campaign against Obama’s proposed airline tax hikes.

The U.S. Department of Energy has been hit by recent successful cyber attacks and needs to do more to protect its computer systems, the department's internal watchdog said in a report on Monday.

U.S. grain and soybean futures rose over 1 percent on Monday in a broad commodities rally as investors bet that European leaders would reach a deal to tackle a euro-zone debt crisis and took heart from an improved manufacturing indicator in China.

It's much ado about something. Joss Whedon has directed, adapted, cast and filmed an entire movie -- an adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing -- in secret, TheWrap has learned.

Eurozone authorities should in future have greater powers to influence the economic policies of countries in the bloc if a member persistently fails to meet economic targets, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Monday.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi summoned his cabinet for an emergency meeting on Monday to seek ways to overcome opposition from coalition allies to demands from European partners for swift economic reforms.

The board of TNK-BP Holding , half owned by BP, on Monday voted against an initiative to join a minority shareholder in a lawsuit against the British oil major, a spokesman for BP in Moscow told Reuters.

Caterpillar Inc far exceeded analyst expectations on Monday, reporting a 44 percent quarterly earnings increase due to record revenue, and the company signaled optimism in its 2012 outlook.