IBT Staff Reporter

South Korea must do more to open its market to U.S. cars before President Barack Obama will send a free trade agreement signed in June 2007 to Congress for a vote, the chief U.S. trade negotiator said on Thursday.

About 40 world leaders plan to go to Copenhagen next month to boost the chances of clinching a U.N. climate deal, the United Nations said Friday as preparatory talks wound down with scant progress.

A U.N. climate deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen at talks from December 7-18 may fall short of a legally binding treaty, according to the United Nations.

Two Iranian businessmen working at a Dubai-based firm were linked to video surveillance devices sold to Sudan and used in unmanned drones in Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, a U.N. report said.

H1N1 swine flu is on the rise in China and Japan after triggering an unusually early start to the winter influenza season in Europe, Central Asia and North America, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The HTC Droid Eris began selling available alongside the Motorola Droid today in Verizon stores nationwide and its appears to be ahead of its Droid competitor in three key aspects.

Renewable energy firm Ocean Power Technologies has won a A$66.5 million ($61 million) grant from the Australian government for a project set to be one of the first to generate power from waves on a utility scale.

Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP posted a forecast-beating quarterly profit and said it is gearing up for more deals and IPOs as the lending and equity markets recover.

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives scrambled on Friday to allay lingering concerns about a broad healthcare overhaul and raised the possibility a vote planned for Saturday could slip into next week.

After much anticipation and buzz over it being the next iPhone Killer, Verizon officially launched its Motorola Droid in the US on Friday.

Computer giant Apple Inc will open its first French store beneath the Louvre museum on Saturday just two weeks after Microsoft opened a theme cafe to promote its Windows 7 software.

The U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly jumped to a 26-1/2-year high of 10.2 percent last month, adding to pressure on the Obama administration to do more to tackle unemployment even as signs of recovery mount.

A U.S. trade panel on Friday approved two new investigations into charges of unfair trade practices by China, but rejected another one week ahead of President Barack Obama's trip to Asia.

The head of General Motors' European business, Carl-Peter Forster, is leaving the company after the surprise decision by GM's board to block the sale of Opel, two sources close to the situation told Reuters.

Wireless LAN vendor Aruba Networks Inc said it will pay Motorola Inc $19.8 million to settle two-year-long patent disputes.

Indian state-run telecom Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd may open direct negotiations for a stake in Kuwait's Zain if its exclusive talks as part of a consortium fail.

Kraft Foods is persisting in its waiting game as a deadline for its acquisition of British confectioner Cadbury nears, and many see a formal bid coming in close to its tight first offer.

AES Corp said it will raise $1.58 billion by selling a nearly 15 percent stake in the company to a unit of China Investment Corp (CIC), and the power company posted a higher third-quarter profit.

Poland said on Friday it had received three offers for its stake in the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Solar company STR Holdings Inc priced its initial public offering of 12.3 million shares at $10 a share on Friday, below the target range and a day later than expected.

Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo has taken a museum detailing its history and culture online, allowing young designers to add their creative touch to its shoe models.

Shares of Magna International Inc were up more than 12 percent on Friday, a day after it posted a surprise quarterly profit and said it would focus on its core auto-parts business after the collapse of its deal to buy a stake in General Motors Co's Opel unit.

The International Monetary Fund warned global financial leaders on Friday not to repeat the mistakes of the Great Depression and choke off emergency support for their economies too quickly.

A founder of part of payments processing business RBS WorldPay is interested in buying all of the business back from Royal Bank of Scotland after the UK bank was told to sell it by European competition authorities.

EBay Inc said on Friday that private investors looking to buy Skype had agreed to settle litigation with Skype's founders, who will get a 14-percent stake in the Internet phone service in the transaction.

U.S. stocks were little changed in choppy trading on Friday as brokerage upgrades offset data showing the unemployment rate soared to 10.2 percent last month, its highest in more than 26 years.

For his role in turning Apple into a groundbreaking technology leader and the most valuable company in Silicon Valley, Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs its CEO of the Decade.

London-based record label EMI has won an injunction against music website BlueBeat.com which it said was selling Beatles songs without its permission.

Bank of America Corp's CEO search could last until Thanksgiving, the New York Post reported on Friday.