IBT Staff Reporter

South African IT company Datatec posted lower first-half headline earnings, in line with its own forecast, and said it was looking to expand given the worst of the downturn was over.

Oil surged for a fifth day on Wednesday to a 2009 high above $75 a barrel, boosted by a weak dollar and optimism about a global economic rebound that will lead to higher energy demand.

Despite fears of failure facing global climate change negotiations in December, the U.N. climate panel chief said Wednesday it was still possible to agree a pact, including levels of emission cuts by rich nations.

South Korea's LG Display said on Wednesday that it would set up a joint venture for a proposed $4 billion LCD plant in China, as Asian panel makers rush to increase their presence in the fast-growing Chinese TV market.

Following are the negotiating positions of the top greenhouse gas emitters in the run-up to a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December due to agree a new pact for combating climate change

ASML's results soared above expectations as its customers in the semiconductor sector ramped up investments, and the Dutch chip equipment maker forecast a further flood of orders in the fourth quarter.

Al Martino, a crooner who had several pop hits spanning more than 20 years and played Johnny Fontane in the 1970s Godfather movies, died Tuesday at his childhood home in Springfield, Pa. He was 82.

Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino will be tackling more mother-daughter relationships in a project for HBO.

Australia's government will be asked to exempt farmers from carbon trading in order to pass landmark emissions laws through parliament under changes being pushed by opposition lawmakers on Wednesday.

China-focused Fortune Oil Plc said on Wednesday an independent resource evaluation raised its gas resource estimate at the company's Liulin block in Shanxi Province, tripling the possible reserves to 84.8 billion cubic feet (bcf).

U.S. meat processor National Beef filed plans to raise up to $300 million in a U.S.-listed initial public offering.

Las Vegas Sands, which is seeking to raise up to $2.5 billion by listing its Macau assets on the Hong Kong stock exchange, could launch its initial public offering by late November, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.

British home shopping company N Brown said it could enter the potentially lucrative United States market next year as it posted record first-half results and a positive outlook, sending its shares higher.

In Shakira's hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, there's a 15-foot metal statue of her, wearing bell bottoms and strumming a guitar. It was donated by a German sculptor in 2006, in the midst of the singer's wildly successful Oral Fixation world tour, which featured her jaw-dropping belly-dancing and a finale of Hips Don't Lie with Wyclef Jean.

CIT Group Inc Chief Executive Jeffrey Peek, whose plans to turn the sleepy commercial lender into a Wall Street player were laid low by the credit crisis and management missteps, is retiring in the latest sign the company is closer to filing for bankruptcy.

Bloomberg LP will buy BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill Companies as the news and data provider seeks to reach a wider audience than its traditional clients in financial services.

Benjamin Bratt will guest star on ABC's new comedy series Modern Family, playing the ex of Sofia Vergara's character.

Smaller Letdown; Retailers drop; Big bank profit

Former Formula One champions Williams will have a new engine partner next season after announcing the end of their Toyota deal on Wednesday.

Giant buyout funds are likely a thing of the past, and new cash raised will be for medium-sized, specialist funds, a top executive of British private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd said on Wednesday.

A few months after the Beatles box sets made retailers scramble to fill orders, the King of Rock 'n' Roll is getting the royal treatment.

Host Hotels & Resorts Inc's third-quarter results surpassed analyst expectations on Wednesday aided by higher-than-expected revenue, four hotel sales and a nearly 10 percent reduction in costs.

An investor consortium led by U.S. buyout giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co announced on Wednesday that it poured a combined $160 million into a Chinese financial leasing firm to help it expand business.

Royal Bank of Scotland is considering a plan which could result in the sale of just over 10 percent of its British branches in a move to ease EU concerns over state aid, a source familiar with the matter said.

The Unite trade union said on Tuesday it had struck a deal to secure the future of GM Opel car plants in Britain after the planned sale of the carmaker, which makes Vauxhall cars in the UK, to Canada's Magna (MGa.TO).

Moscow and Washington must agree on where the threats to their security come from before plans to cooperate on missile defense can progress, Russia's negotiator said.

It may have looked like a done deal for President Hamid Karzai and many Afghans when, one by one, key ethnic chiefs and regional power brokers threw their weight behind the incumbent ahead of the August 20 presidential election.

A security summit between China, Russia and their Central Asian neighbors wrapped up in Beijing on Wednesday with vague promises to deepen economic cooperation but no public mention of regional flashpoints like Afghanistan.

Rallying commodity markets are adding to profits of Wall Street houses like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, and banks are ramping up commodity desks again, a year after the recession cut into operations.