IBT Staff Reporter

Gold continued its upward streak to touch a new all high on Monday due to China's decision to allow flexibility in Yuan that pushed yellow metal to $ 1262.5 per ounce.

When we talk about Afghanistan, the first picture we get is Taliban and Osama bin Laden. But Afghanistan has a different face too. It is one of the richest nations as far as minerals are concerned.

The high prices of gold is threatening several families in a different way. According to reports, the Cambodian government has threatened to burn homes of almost 100 families who are living at the site of a gold deposit recently discovered by an Australian mining company.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Monday, rising alongside global stocks after China's vow to allow a flexible yuan exchange rate boosted investors' appetite for risky assets.

Stocks and commodities jumped on Monday and U.S. Treasuries fell as investors bet China will allow the yuan to rise after promising more currency flexibility, easing political tensions with the West and encouraging investors to snap up riskier assets.

Verizon Communications will let customers try its FiOS Internet and television service for a month without charging them fees for early contract termination if they switch off the service after that.

China's yuan bolted to a 21-month high on Monday, suggesting authorities are unshackling the currency from its de facto 23-month-old peg to the dollar after vowing greater flexibility at the weekend.

Global markets celebrated on Monday at the merest hint that China would let its currency appreciate, showing just how badly the Middle Kingdom is needed to drive a recovery in the sagging world economy.

JPMorgan Chase is in talks to buy a large Brazilian asset management company, the Financial Times reported in its Monday edition.

Former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos swept to a landslide victory in Colombia's run-off election on Sunday to succeed President Alvaro Uribe as the leader of Washington's top ally in Latin America.

Global markets celebrated on Monday at the merest hint that China would let its currency appreciate, showing just how badly the Middle Kingdom is needed to drive a recovery in the sagging world economy.

Former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos won an easy victory in Colombia's run-off election on Sunday to succeed President Alvaro Uribe as the leader of Washington's top ally in Latin America.

The Australian Dollar has rallied more than one cent this morning after Friday night's close to trade over 0.8800 after the PBOC (People's Bank of China) announced on the weekend that it will make the RMB exchange rate more flexible in the future but will still maintain a trading band of +/-0.5%.

China's signal that it will ease its currency's 23-month-old peg to the dollar will spare the country from U.S. lawmakers' wrath only if it opens the door to significant upward movement in the yuan.

Policymakers in the world's major economies will closely monitor the Chinese yuan this week for signs it is actually moving after Beijing announced it would make its exchange rate more flexible.

The Australian Dollar opens higher this morning and is exchanging at 0.8678. In the offshore session to dollar moved between 0.8580 and 0.8680 as risk appetite returned to the markets.

The biggest threat to Britain's economy is its huge budget deficit, and an emergency budget on Tuesday will save the country from the fate of debt-stricken Greece, British finance minister George Osborne said on Sunday.

(Corrects maximum payroll tax break size in paragraph 14)

Belarus said it was sending a delegation to Moscow on Sunday for eleventh-hour emergency talks with Russian gas giant Gazprom after Gazprom threatened to cut supplies over an unresolved price row. Russia has said it will cut 85 percent of gas supplies from Monday to Belarus if its ex-Soviet neighbor fails to pay $192 million in debts to Gazprom --- money Belarus denies it owes.

China will keep the yuan's exchange rate at a basically stable level, the central bank said on Sunday, suggesting that the country's new currency regime will look a lot like the old one.

One of the largest investors at British insurer Prudential will on Monday call for the resignation of chairman Harvey McGrath, the Sunday Times reported, citing sources.

Tensions in global financial markets stemming from the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis appear to be easing, setting the stage for investors to dip back into risky assets in the second half of this year.

BP is planning to raise $50 billion to cover the cost of the largest oil spill in U.S. history, London's Sunday Times reported without citing sources. The paper said BP planned to raise $10 billion from a bond sale, $20 billion from banks and $20 billion from asset sales over the next two years.

China's decision to end the yuan's nearly two-year peg against the dollar will boost its stock market heavyweights, as it heralds a long-term yuan appreciation based on robust productivity growth and aids an economic adjustment toward less reliance on exports.

Following are forecasts by bankers and strategists on the level of expected yuan appreciation after China ditched its peg to the U.S. dollar.

Colombians will vote on Sunday in a presidential run-off that former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was expected to win after vowing to continue the incumbent president's policies on security and the economy.

Workers at a plastics parts supplier for Toyota Motor Corp in China resumed work on Sunday, ending a three-day strike over pay and benefits, state media said.

SAIC Motor Corp , China's biggest automaker, said it was planning a private placement of new shares and trading in its stock will be suspended from Monday.

China's announcement that it will resume currency reform made waves globally but caused barely a ripple at home on Sunday, with major newspapers merely reprinting the central bank's statement.