IBT Staff Reporter

President Barack Obama's U.S. healthcare overhaul plan has cleared an important Senate hurdle but lawmakers warned on Sunday of challenges ahead in winning support for passage, even among Obama's own Democrats.

Japan's defense ministry is moving toward selecting Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 jet as the mainstay of its next-generation fighter force, Kyodo news agency reported on Monday, citing ministry sources.

A senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday the central bank should keep alive a mortgage-backed securities buying program beyond a planned end-date to give policy-makers more flexibility as they help the economy recover from a painful recession.

A senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday the central bank should keep alive its mortgage-related assets purchase program beyond a planned end-date to give policy-makers more flexibility as they help the economy recover from a painful recession.

The Federal Reserve should keep alive its asset purchase programs beyond the first quarter of 2010 to give policy-makers more flexibility if the economy took another turn for the worse, a senior Fed official said on Sunday.

Kraft Foods Inc may raise its offer for British chocolatier Cadbury Plc or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.

A senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday the central bank should keep alive a mortgage-backed securities buying program beyond a planned end-date to give policy-makers more flexibility as they help the economy recover from a painful recession.

Stocks could sputter this week as volumes dry up in holiday-shortened trading and with a slew of economic reports likely to illustrate the recovery is still fragile.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is essential for credible monetary policy and doubts about the U.S. central bank's ability to do its job without political interference could hurt the nascent economic recovery, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday.

The independence of the Federal Reserve is essential for credible monetary policy and doubts about the U.S. central bank's ability to do its job without political interference could hurt the nascent economic recovery, a senior Federal Reserve official said on Sunday.

Coca-Cola , the world's largest soft-drink maker, is planning to more than double its number of bottling plants in China within a decade, the Financial Times said.

eBay Inc said on Sunday it had restored a search function on its website overnight Saturday after a glitch led to searches returning either limited or no results throughout the day.

When the U.S. holiday shopping season kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving, retailers can expect to see millions of less frightened, but even more bargain-hungry customers cross their thresholds.

A New York Times editorial slammed Goldman Sachs for its role in the financial crisis and said that instead of paying big bonuses to its employees it should make a multibillion-dollar gift to help reduce the U.S. national debt.

Current valuations of waste managers such as Waste Connections Inc , Waste Management Inc and Republic Services Inc give the company's shares a lot of room to rise, according to a Barron's story.

Kraft Foods may raise its offer for Cadbury Plc or offer more cash in its bid if rival takeover offers emerge, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.

The rebound in the greenback continued on Friday night as the Australian Dollar consolidated its recent losses. The Aussie opens lower today at 0.9140 after hitting an offshore low of 0.9059 (a two-week low), as Wall Street fell for third straight session. Increased risk aversion is keeping a lid on the local unit for the time being as recent economic data releases in the United States have failed to impress investors. There is no major local economic data due in the early part of the week and n...

Bank of America may extend its search for a new chief executive into next year if its board is unable to pick a candidate in the next four days, according to a report on the Bloomberg News website.

A team of unidentified hackers has managed to steal confidential global warming data after breaking into the e-mail server of a prominent, British climate-research center and posted them online - showing that climate scientists conspired to overstate that man has caused climate change. Kevin Trenberth, of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Colorado, told the Associated Press that he believes the hackers did this to fuel skeptics theory that that climate change was not man-ma...

Swiss food giant Nestle may consider a bid for Britain's Cadbury to challenge a hostile 9.9 billion-pound bid by Kraft Foods Inc and a potential move by Hershey, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday there was no substitute to the U.S. dollar for replacement as the global reserve currency.

Herman Van Rompuy, the European Union's new president, may not be very well known around the world but he's already winning fans in Japan -- as a poet rather than a politician.

Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said Sunday the reform movement would not be cowed by the hardline government's harsh methods as riot police prevented a demonstration by moderates taking place.

Cadbury Plc would prefer a merger with U.S. chocolate maker Hershey Co rather than Kraft Foods Inc, the British company's chairman Roger Carr told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Israel's president said Sunday expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank was a marginal issue blocking resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

An overloaded ferry sank in bad weather off Indonesia's Riau islands on Sunday, killing four while nearly 300 passengers survived the accident, officials said.

The death toll from China's latest coal mine disaster reached 92 on Sunday, state television said, and hopes dimmed that more survivors would emerge after a gas blast at a colliery in the nation's far northeast.

Iran's armed forces launched large-scale air defense war games on Sunday to show off the country's deterrence capabilities in the face of pressure from the West over its nuclear program.

International pressure on China to lift the value of its yuan against the dollar could stoke risks to growth in 2010, an economist at a top state thinktank has said, warning of a deepening dilemma facing currency policy.