IBT Staff Reporter

Police are following several lines of inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing focusing on possible accomplices of convicted former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, Scottish authorities said on Sunday.

Asia-Pacific leaders called on Sunday for regional-wide free trade and other measures to reduce dependence on the United States and big Western markets as Asia leads the way out of the global economic downturn.

A team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog inspected a nuclear site in Iran on Sunday that has heightened Western fears of a covert program to develop atomic bombs, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Two suicide bombs tore through Baghdad on Sunday, killing 132 people, wounding more than 500 and leaving mangled bodies and cars on the streets in one of Iraq's deadliest days this year, police said.

The Japanese government plans to put a state-backed turnaround body in charge of the overhaul of Japan Airlines , the Nikkei business daily said, underlining the government's deeper involvement in the process.

The Japanese government has decided to put a state-backed turnaround body in charge of the revitalisation of Japan Airlines, the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday, underlining the government's deeper involvement in the process.

The real estate investment manager who led the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's largest pension fund, into a money-losing land venture has resigned as an adviser to the fund, according to news reports.

Japan's government has begun looking into special legislation to deal with the restructuring of struggling Japan Airlines Corp, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Saturday.

Volkswagen is offering to save Germany's Karmann from going bust, but the contract carmaker's owners are demanding more money than VW is willing to put up, weekly Spiegel reported, giving no details of its sources.

India's top carmaker Maruti Suzuki warned rising input costs and a stronger yen could put pressure on its margins in the future as it reported a 93 percent jump in quarterly profit on Saturday.

Blackstone Group's Merlin Entertainments, the theme park group that owns Legoland and the London Eye, is preparing an initial public offering, the Financial Times website reported on Friday.

Private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and General Atlantic are moving closer to a deal to buy Northrop Grumman's TASC unit, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

United Community Banks Inc posted a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, hurt by higher provision for loan losses, but said it expected to return to profitability in 2010.

Utility company Duke Energy Corp said it agreed to develop commercial solar power projects in the United States with ENN Group, a private Chinese energy company.

JPMorgan Cazenove's joint venture owners are keen to decide whether J.P. Morgan should buy out its UK investment banking partner before bonuses are set for staff around the turn of the year, industry sources said.

Private equity firm Apollo Management cut more than $1.9 billion of costs out of its portfolio companies after the financial crisis, according to a letter sent to its investors on Thursday.

Federal prosecutors in the Galleon Group case have sent a subpoena to a former employee of SAC Capital Advisors, a sign that the scope of the probe into the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history is expanding, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Forty years ago, actor Peter Fonda flew down America's highways on a motorcycle in counterculture classic Easy Rider. So what better way to celebrate the film's anniversary than with a bunch of bikers?

Gossip Girl actress Leighton Meester hasn't yet released her Universal Republic debut. But it appears the TV star is well on her way to silencing naysayers about her fledgling singing career.

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With four nominations each, Beyonce, Keri Hilson and Maxwell head the list of nominees for the Soul Train Awards.

Carly Simon recorded her new album, Never Been Gone, at her Martha's Vineyard compound, and she delivers intriguing twists on her hits (You're So Vain, Anticipation) and other songs from past albums, as well as two new tunes.

The last time singer Mario saw the pinnacle of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart was in 2005. That's when Let Me Love You -- from his 2004 second album, Turning Point -- reached No. 1. Four years and two albums later, the Baltimore crooner finds himself close to reclaiming that zenith.

There's not really much to say anymore about the Saw series, which has found its formula and is sticking with it.

For the past seven months, Questlove has been on the run. The Roots drummer, whose driver's license reads Ahmir Thompson, wakes up every day between 6 and 7 a.m. to catch an 8 a.m. train from his hometown of Philadelphia and usually doesn't return home until 11 p.m.

A judge on Friday cleared rapper Kanye West of criminal charges following a scuffle with paparazzi at Los Angeles International Airport last year, pending his completion of community service, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Attorney said.

Heading toward its October 28 release, Michael Jackson movie This Is It looks like a box office winner for Sony's Columbia Pictures movie studio with one estimate saying it could make more than $600 million worldwide in a limited two-week run.

Private equity firm Blackstone is preparing to float theme park operator Merlin Entertainments next year, hoping to take advantage of buoyant equity markets, a source familiar with the situation said.