IBT Staff Reporter

A 1,000-mile undersea fiber-optic cable, trumpeted as a blow against the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, has been strung from socialist ally Venezuela to the communist-led island, officials said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama will outline his plan on Thursday for expanding high speed wireless Internet service to 98 percent of Americans while reducing the U.S. deficit by $9.6 billion over the next 10 years.

INQ mobile has created two Android-based phones, both focused on bringing an enriched Facebook experience to mobile.

Corrects to show prior '11 goal was low double-digit growth, not 11-13 pct growth; Error first occurred in UPDATE 2

U.N. nuclear watchdog governors are expected to approve next month a new fuel supply plan meant to help countries develop atomic energy without increasing the risk of weapons proliferation.

North and South Korea traded blame Thursday for the breakdown of military talks as a stalemate emerged over the starting point for negotiations.

India and Pakistan said on Thursday they would resume formal peace talks but issues such as militancy and the disputed Kashmir region are likely to slow any progress towards defusing tensions.

A 12-year-old boy in a school uniform blew himself up at a Pakistani army recruitment centre on Thursday, killing 31 cadets, officials said, in an attack that challenges government assertions that it has weakened militants.

Sudanese security forces briefly held prominent opposition figure Mariam al-Mahdi and other women on Thursday, witnesses said, the latest detentions in a crackdown on anti-government protests.

Egypt must do more to meet protesters' demands for political change, the United States said on Wednesday in a sharp escalation of rhetoric with one of its most important allies in the Middle East.

The Obama administration is closely watching the economic fallout from Egypt's political crisis and believes progress toward democratic reforms would help stem economic instability, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

U.S.-Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail once received a medal from President Hosni Mubarak. Now, he says, it's time for the Egyptian leader to heed the demonstrators clamouring for his departure.

Anglo American's thermal coal unit is keen to expand its operations in South Africa and beyond, but is waiting for price of acquisitions to come down first, the unit's head said late on Wednesday.

A fall in South African thermal coal prices to $113 a tonne this week has started to draw out Indian buyers who have been sidelined since November, Indian traders said on Thursday.

A halt to cocoa-buying in Ivory Coast is leaving beans to rot in farm warehouses, while smuggling through Ghana intensifies and some growers switch to other crops, farmers said on Thursday.

Growth in South Africa's manufacturing output slowed to just 0.2 percent on the year in December and was far below analysts forecasts, showing the vital sector still struggling to recover from a recession in 2009.

Stocks were little changed on Thursday, erasing most losses as investors took the opportunity to buy shares at a cheaper price.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are warning poor regions that have so far not been hit by rising food prices, like sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, to get ready to face them.

Eleven soldiers accused of raping more than 60 women in eastern Congo went on trial at a military court on Thursday.

The United States on Thursday condemned a recent spate of violence in Zimbabwe and blamed President Robert Mugabe's party for the attacks, which are heightening tensions ahead of possible elections this year.

Thomson Reuters Corp said it expects revenue to rise in 2011 after stronger growth in the fourth quarter and more signs that its financial and professional customers are recovering from the recession.

The fate of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak will be decided in a matter of hours and most probably he will step down, an Egyptian official told Reuters on Thursday.

Power cuts, shortages of medicine and cooking gas, empty cash machines, depleted shops and piles of uncollected trash: these were things Ivorians used to see as the scourge of their poorer West African neighbours.

The Bank of England kept its key interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent Thursday, judging that the threat from rising inflation will prove temporary and that Britain's recovery remains in doubt.

Sprint Nextel Corp added mobile subscribers for the first quarter in more than three years, sending its shares up 3.2 percent in premarket trading.

Rio Tinto's smaller than expected $5 billion share buyback and caution over the sustainability of a commodity boom overshadowed record profits from the mining giant.

Wall Street was weighed down by disappointing earnings from Cisco Systems, but stocks bounced off their lows on Thursday as investors saw weakness in the market as a buying opportunity.

New U.S. claims for jobless benefits dropped to a 2-1/2-year low last week, pointing to a firming undertone in the labor market as the economic recovery gathers momentum.

PepsiCo Inc cut its earnings growth targets for 2011 and beyond on Thursday, citing higher commodity costs, a difficult economy and investments in emerging markets.