IBT Staff Reporter

Film director Richard Attenborough is auctioning part of his collection of British paintings, including one he sold to help finance Oscar-winning movie Gandhi and which he bought back years later.

More than 124,000 people in Europe developed cancer last year because they are overweight, and rising body fat levels threaten to add tens of thousands more to their ranks, experts said on Thursday.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday it was looking into an unpublished Canadian study indicating that a seasonal flu shot could increase the risk of catching the H1N1 virus.

Steelcase Inc, the world's largest office furniture maker, broke even in the second quarter, but guided lower third-quarter earnings as demand remains sluggish, sending shares down 7 percent.

Global leaders will institutionalise the G20 as the world's main economic governing council, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday.

Legal entanglements and well-intentioned home-owner-assistance efforts have slowed the pace of foreclosures, but eventually many of these distressed homes will hit the market anyway.

American Greetings Corp posted a 10-fold jump in quarterly profit, helped by lower expenses and improved inventory management, sending its shares up as much as 27 percent to their highest in more than a year.

DigitalGlobe Inc said the launch of its newest satellite has been delayed as the rocket that is set to carry it to orbit has had a delay with an earlier launch, sending its shares down about 5 percent.

Telecom equipment maker Comtech Telecommunications Corp gave fiscal 2010 outlook above market estimates citing a strong backlog, sending its shares up 8 percent.

New Volkswagen (VOWG.DE) shareholder Qatar will start with only one seat on the carmaker's supervisory board, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

The German book trade slammed European regulators on Thursday for failing to take a stand against an agreement allowing U.S. internet company Google to create an online library.

Google Inc's Web-based email service suffered its second high-profile technical problem this month as users reported difficulty accessing their contacts.

Nine North Koreans entered Denmark's embassy in Hanoi Thursday, seeking political asylum after leaving their impoverished and isolated country in search of food and freedom, activists and a group statement said.

Onex Corp plans to take advantage of a building crisis in the U.S. commercial real estate market, an official with the Canadian private-equity company said on Thursday.

Chinese housing prices have surged since March, but they will soon lose momentum and even start to fall around the end of the year, boding well for a more sustained contribution to overall economic growth.

Shares of Canwest Global Communications Corp, Canada's biggest media company, jumped more than 75 percent on Thursday after it announced it would sell its stake in Australia's Network Ten television network for more than C$630 million ($578 million).

Canada's industry minister said on Thursday the government will review Avaya Inc's AVXX.UL purchase of Nortel Networks Corp's enterprise business to see if the deal is in Canada's best interest.

Some 3,000 Opel workers and union leaders from across Europe protested on Wednesday against the threatened closure of the carmaker's plant in Belgium and plans to cut the workforce by a fifth.

U.S. pharmaceuticals company Abbott Laboratories Inc made an unsolicited offer for the drugs unit of Belgian chemicals firm Solvay, a source familiar with the situation said on Thursday, rivaling a bid from private equity-owned drugs maker Nycomed.

Germany will seek a good European solution over state aid to loss-making carmaker Opel, and does not expect the European Union to block any deal, Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said on Thursday.

A cloud of pessimism is suffocating hopes that U.S. President Barack Obama can pull off a miracle in the Middle East by setting negotiations on course for rapid progress toward a comprehensive peace agreement.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly fell 21,000 last week, government data showed on Thursday, and a less volatile unemployment claims gauge dipped to an eight-month low.

Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC), a building and engineering firm that raised $2.3 billion in Hong Kong's biggest IPO this year, fell on its debut as investors, tiring from an IPO deluge, judged the stock was too pricey given an uncertain outlook for China's steel industry.

China dampened expectations of further sanctions on Iran Thursday, telling other major powers that putting even more pressure on Tehran would not persuade it to halt its nuclear program.

G20 Gathers; Mixed Economic Signals; Losing the Bailout Funds

Shares of Julius Baer Holding AG's U.S. asset management arm Artio Global Investors Inc jumped 6.7 percent in their debut following the company's initial public offering that raised more money than expected.

China's efforts to gain a greater stake in Australia's resource industry suffered a new setback on Thursday when a Chinese miner dropped a $400 million bid for a controlling stake in an Australian rare earths miner.

Existing home sales in the U.S fell in August and jobless claims around the nation fell last week, sending mixed signals at the early stages of the nation's economic recovery.

Nomura Holdings Inc said it would raise up to 511 billion yen ($5.6 billion) in its second share sale since buying Lehman's Asian and European operations, targeting investments and tighter capital requirements.