IBT Staff Reporter

European leaders sought to paper over deep divisions on how best to resolve the debt crisis ahead of a summit on Thursday, and Spain and Portugal came under renewed pressure to get their finances in order.

Chinese banks should ensure that the normal demand for loans is satisfied this month, the banking regulator said on Thursday, signaling that the government wants to avoid an over-tightening of credit.

European tech start-ups are eyeing an early move to the U.S. West Coast, lured by the deeper pockets and stronger track record of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.

Toshiba Corp may turn its first annual profit on liquid crystal display panels in four years as sales of smartphones and tablet computers boom, the company's CEO said in an interview on Thursday.

Japanese video game maker Square Enix on Thursday slashed its full-year net profit forecast by more than 90 percent to far below the market consensus and said it will postpone the launch of two key game titles.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a flat to slightly higher open for Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, for the Dow Jones industrial average and for the Nasdaq flat to up 0.1 percent by 0913 GMT.

Honda Motor Co said on Thursday it would recall about 1.35 million Fit subcompacts globally to repair defective wiring in the headlights.

Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables reveal BP suffered a blowout on an Azerbaijan gas platform in September 2008 and was fortunate to evacuate workers safely after a blast that preceded the one that killed 11 workers in the Gulf of Mexico in April, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported.

Toshiba Corp may see profit in its liquid-crystal display business recover to more than 10 billion yen ($119 million) for the year to March, compared with its previous forecast of zero, its chief executive said on Thursday.

The euro steadied on Thursday as dealers squared up positions ahead of a meeting of European Union leaders, while U.S. Treasuries bounced after a selloff overnight took 10-year yields above 3.5 percent, sending some investors hunting for value.

Annette Bongiorno, one of Bernard Madoff's longest serving employees, will have to give up at least $2.4 million and her husband's money for a judge to consider granting her bail on criminal charges, a New York court heard on Wednesday.

European Union leaders meet on Thursday to try to agree the next steps in tackling a year-long debt crisis that has consumed Greece and Ireland and threatens to spread to Portugal and Spain.

Corning Inc has developed a clean, razor thin glass that is sturdy enough to withstand everyday scratches -- a dazzling breakthrough that has done little for its bottom line.

The groundwork is in place for a stable yuan because China's current account surplus is trending down and other currencies have been swirling about in choppy trade, an official newspaper said on Thursday.

The company introduces speech recognition to Android 2.2 phones, which can recognize the user's phone and understand their specific dialect.

A senior executive of China's top search engine, Baidu Inc, forecast its top-line and bottom-line growth rates to moderate over the next year, sending its shares down 6 percent on Wednesday.

Creditors of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, including hedge fund Paulson & Co, may file a competing reorganization plan for distributing the bank's assets, a person familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. sued BP and eight other defendants on Wednesday over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mex ico, seeking civil penalties under the Clean Water Act.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc bondholders filed a rival plan to parcel out the bank's estimated $58 billion in assets in the largest U.S. bankruptcy reorganization on record.

Google Inc's YouTube is in talks to buy Web show maker Next New Networks in what would be the video sharing site's first foray into content production, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

General Motors Co has bought back the government's holdings of GM preferred stock issued in the automaker's bailout for $2.1 billion, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

A class action suit against AT&T for back wages and damages, filed on behalf of some of its information technology workers, has picked up more plaintiffs.

(Following Justice Department correction, makes clear Lloyds was Transocean's insurer, not BP's, in paragraph 2)

A U.S. Border Patrol agent is dead, shot in a gun battle Tuesday night at the U.S.-Mexico border near Rio Rico, Arizona.

Twitter has raised $200 million of financing in a deal that values the microblogging company at $3.7 billion, less than a year after it began its first serious efforts to make money.

Web commerce company eBay Inc said on Wednesday it acquired Critical Path Software, a mobile software application developer, as the company further embraces selling via mobile.

Bank of America Corp on Wednesday said investors delayed a technical default on the bank over its mortgage servicing unit, allowing more time for talks about alleged contract violations.

Citigroup Inc will officially open a new, high-tech branch in New York City on Thursday, in an effort to woo more business from wealthy, urban customers.

Supporters of WikiLeaks who last week attacked the websites of MasterCard and Visa, say they are tweaking the software used for those assaults in a bid to create more powerful tools for possible future protests.