IBT Staff Reporter

State-controlled Maaden on Sunday said it awarded contracts worth $453 million for its planned Saudi-based aluminum joint-venture with Alcoa Inc .

Volatility will be the name of the game on Wall Street this week as uncertainty over the euro-zone debt crisis remains and investors will need nerves of steel to make bets on risky assets like stocks.

Paris police advised people against going to the Champ de Mars area Sunday evening where a mass cocktail party organized over the internet is due to take place.

A five-day strike by British Airways cabin crew due to start on Monday looks set to go ahead after the union said it would not hold any further talks with management, the BBC reported.

Former Morgan Stanley banker John Hyman will not join Nomura to become its new co-head of global finance at its London operation as had been expected due to regulatory issues, a source said on Saturday.

Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies, which bought a $300 million stake in Facebook last year, is preparing to buy stakes in dozens of well-known Internet companies, its chief executive said.

Adalberto Lopez' family-run musical instrument shop in the bustling Arizona border city of Nogales sells guitars and accordions to foot-stomping banda musicians and mariachis who cross up from Mexico to shop.

Europe's financial crisis should have only minimal impact on the global recovery as governments put in place necessary policy counter-measures, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official said Sunday.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou ruled out defaulting on debt payments or restructuring in a Spanish newspaper interview published on Sunday.

British Airways will not be grounded if the first of three five-day cabin crew strikes goes ahead on Monday, chief executive Willie Walsh said on Sunday.

Globally, commodity prices have stabilized after a week of declines although Reuters-Jefferies CRB commodities index dropped 2.3% on the week and 9% so far this month, Financial Times (FT) reported. The report quoting Adam Sieminski, energy economist at Deutsche Bank in Washington said that a combination of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, credit tightening in China and a cluster of worrisome economic indicators in the US has revived concerns about a W-Shaped recovery.

The U.S. Justice Department has dropped a probe of American International Group Inc executives involving the credit default swaps that sent the insurer to the brink of bankruptcy and forced a huge taxpayer bailout, lawyers for the executives said on Saturday.

Germany's parliament approved on Friday a $1 trillion safety net to stabilize the euro as fears swirled that Europe's debt crisis and tougher financial regulation may choke economic recovery.

American International Group Inc on Saturday praised a Justice Department decision it did not specifically identify, but may relate to published reports that federal prosecutors will not charge company executives over credit default swaps.

Negotiations aimed at avoiding three five-day strikes by British Airways cabin crew ended without resolution on Saturday after protesters gate-crashed talks between union leaders and the airline in London.

UAE-based low cost airline Air Arabia will begin flights on its new Egypt-based carrier in June after it received an operating certificate from Egyptian authorities, the company said on Saturday.

Telecom equipment venture Nokia Siemens Networks aims for an operating profit margin of up to 3 percent on revenue of between 3.1-3.4 billion euros ($3.88-$4.25 billion) in the current quarter, according to a Sunday newspaper.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said a strengthened global economy is now in better shape to handle the strains emanating from Europe's crisis, China's Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

The Foreign Ministry has dismissed as groundless U.S. accusations that China is failing to crack down on copyright piracy, ahead of talks with top U.S. officials next week, Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

Washington Mutual Inc and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp have reached a global settlement that will return $7 billion to the bank's creditors, a critical step in the bankruptcy involving the biggest bank failure in U.S. history.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he did not agree with current opinion that the sovereign debt crisis had become the biggest threat to the world economy, China's Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

Legg Mason Inc gave its biggest signal yet that its famed stock picker Bill Miller, who has underperformed in recent years, is preparing for retirement.

The U.S. Treasury Department has hired Lazard Ltd to advise the government on an initial public offering of General Motors Co, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Google TV, a service that will bring the Web to television screens, is likely to create more headaches for broadcast and cable executives already concerned with being sidelined by free online video shows on computers.

Google Inc has won U.S. approval to buy mobile advertising rival AdMob, after months of delay and rumor that the No. 1 Internet search engine was headed for a court fight with government officials over the $750 million transaction.

Research In Motion is poised to beat profit expectations over the next 12 months, powered by demand for its new BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone, a TD Newcrest analyst said on Friday.

Stocks snapped a three-day losing streak on Friday as investors bought beaten-down shares including banks on bets the financial regulation bill won't be as onerous as some had feared.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc shares rose as much as 5.4 percent on Friday on rumors of a possible settlement with regulators and a feeling that the stock could be oversold.