IBT Staff Reporter

News Corp's satellite pay-TV unit Sky Italia sees enormous scope to grow its business and rejected talk of a war with its main rival, its chief executive said in a newspaper interview on Sunday.

Swiss bank UBS is threatening to move its headquarters out of Switzerland if the authorities impose too many new regulations in the wake of the global financial crisis, Swiss weekly paper Sonntag CH said.

Ailing telecom equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks has changed its business focus to increasing its market share, the new chief executive of the venture was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Dubai World has refused to offload assets at fire-sale prices to repay obligations, forcing it to seek a debt standstill, a newspaper report on Sunday quoted an unnamed source at the government-controlled firm as saying.

The euro zone does not risk the sort of debt problems plaguing Dubai, senior European Union officials said on Sunday.

IBM , the world's biggest technology services company, is expected to announce this week the acquisition of database security start-up Guardium for $225 million, Israeli financial newspaper TheMarker reported.

China will expand schemes that give consumers a discount if they trade in old cars and household appliances for new ones, according to Vice Commerce Minister Jiang Zengwei.

The Treasury Department wants lenders and companies that process monthly mortgage payments to do more to rework troubled home mortgage loans and will announce new measures on Monday aimed at achieving that goal, a department spokeswoman said on Saturday.

The Obama administration plans to announce on Monday a campaign to press mortgage companies to reduce payments for many more struggling homeowners, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

In a worrisome sign for retailers, data released on Saturday showed that sales rose a scant 0.5 percent on the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season despite early signs of a strong showing.

Black Friday sales rose just 0.5 percent to $10.66 billion after rising 3 percent in 2008, ShopperTrak said on Saturday, a rise that may disappoint investors who had expected retailers to see a bigger boost this year.

A focus on bargains pulled U.S. shoppers into stores and onto websites over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, but many said they would stick to their budgets and avoid purchases if they couldn't find a good deal.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa will meet next week, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, as a surging yen adds to debate over central bank policy.

Celebrity blogging website, TMZ, reported Saturday that professional golfer Tiger Woods did not suffer facial lacerations from a car accident but they were rather inflicted by his wife Elin Nordegren.

Rescuers have retrieved 32 bodies, including at least 12 children, and are searching for scores of people missing after an overcrowded ferry sank in a river along the Bangladesh coast, police and witnesses said on Saturday.

A major international conference on Afghanistan, to be held in London in January, will aim to set the conditions for a gradual transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan control, Britain said on Saturday.

The death toll from the heaviest rainfall to hit Saudi Arabia in years rose to 98 on Saturday as more bodies were recovered, with dozens more expected to be found, a rescue services spokesman said.

Russia's domestic intelligence service Saturday said a train disaster that killed dozens and injured nearly 100 was caused by a bomb.

A Zimbabwean-registered cargo plane en route to Kyrgyzstan crashed on take-off in Shanghai on Saturday, killing three U.S. crew on board and triggering a fire, state media and a U.S. spokesman said.

Nokia needs to speedily boost its offering of mobile internet solutions, marketing head Anssi Vanjoki told a German magazine and did not rule out a sale of its core handset manufacturing business in the long term.

In a year full of surprise hits without stars, District 9 stands out as an even more unlikely box office champion than the crowd-pleasing comedy The Hangover or the supernatural thriller Paranormal Activity.

Volkswagen's plans to lift its stake in MAN SE to above 50 percent and fold the truckmaker into a new commercial-vehicles group at VW, a German magazine reported on Saturday.

British singer Robbie Williams proposed to his actress girlfriend, Ayda Field, live on Australian radio on Friday, but his spokesman then said it was a joke.

Every decade has its landmark TV shows, and there will or should never be complete agreement on which 10 series belong at the top of the list.

Violence and theft. Not words one would normally associate with Leona Lewis, the squeaky-clean winner of The X Factor, who went on to stunning worldwide success with her debut album, Spirit.

When organizers for the independent film world's Spirit Awards unveil nominees for its honors this coming Tuesday, they will be doing more than just singling out top movies in the low-budget, art house arena.

Movie flops aren't just about losing money. Yes, big budgets that go bust are one consideration. But flops are also about lofty expectations dashed and high profiles brought low. They trigger embarrassing catcalls from the peanut gallery and a general whoever-thought-that-was-a-good-idea-in-the-first-place bewilderment.

French film director Luc Besson, known worldwide for blockbusters like The Big Blue and The Fifth Element, says his movies face the toughest criticism at home where they are seen as not quite French enough.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has walked away from a planned sale of its German beer brand Beck's to U.S. buyout firm Bain Capital, a German magazine reported.