IBT Staff Reporter

The Australian Dollar has held onto its recent gains and opens the new week at 0.8610.

Moves to save jobs and sites at carmaker Opel when a group led by Canada's Magna International takes control continued on Sunday.

Hundreds of millions of euros in German state aid planned for carmaker Opel is earmarked for operations in Russia, an Opel trustee with reservations about the project was quoted as saying in a newspaper interview.

U.S. health-care firm Johnson & Johnson is in talks to cut the price of a $1.5 billion deal with Irish drugmaker Elan Corp, a source familiar with the negotiations said on Sunday.

The former deputy Governor of the Bank of England said he was astounded the U.S. government let Lehman Brothers go under, and that the bank's collapse marked a clear moment when people lost confidence in the markets.

Following bad weather on Friday, shuttle Discovery had to make a detour and land in California, as opposed to its original planned landing at the Florida base.

Starbucks investors should consider taking their profits and buying a cup of coffee instead of overvalued shares, Barron's said on Sunday.

Central clearing of privately traded derivatives contracts won't be enough to make the $600 trillion sector safe, while clearing of some bespoke trades may not be desirable, the Bank of International Settlements said.

China's commerce ministry said on Sunday it had launched an anti-dumping investigation into imports of U.S. chicken products and vehicles, as the foreign ministry slammed the United States for protectionism.

Video game sales continue to struggle, with sales falling 16 percent compared with August last year, according to research from the NPD Group.

Serena Williams earned a code violation and match penalty late Saturday night which put an end to her U.S. Open run.

Israeli President Shimon Peres was discharged from hospital on Sunday with a clean bill of health, a day after the 86-year-old Nobel peace laureate passed out briefly at a ceremony.

A fire at a clinic for drug addicts in the southeastern Kazakh city of Taldykorgan killed 38 people on Sunday, the Central Asian state's government said.

Iran will not negotiate about its nuclear rights, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, after the United States said it would focus on the Islamic state's atomic activities in upcoming talks with Tehran.

The health of the terminally ill Libyan convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has deteriorated markedly in the past day, his brother and doctors said on Saturday.

Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel goes head to head with Social Democrat (SPD) challenger Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a TV debate later on Sunday which may help determine the outcome of Germany's election on September 27.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday there were still gaps to bridge in talks with a visiting U.S. envoy seeking a settlement freeze and the revival of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

President Barack Obama warned Americans on Saturday not to be tricked by scare tactics he accused his opponents of using as he went on the road to rally support for his drive to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

American Airlines is in talks to take a minority stake in Japan Airlines and form a joint venture with the struggling airline, a source said, pitting it against a rival bid from Delta Airlines .

German property lender Hypo Real Estate , whose financial troubles forced Germany to nationalize it, has billions of euros in unrealized losses that may swell its need for fresh capital, a newspaper reported.

Efforts by private equity firms to sell stakes in portfolio companies through initial public offerings continued late this week as two North American companies took steps toward coming to market.

A community watchdog group expressed outrage and Wells Fargo said it was launching an investigation after a newspaper reported that a senior exec threw lavish parties at a beachfront Malibu house owned by the bank.

British singer Elton John, visiting Ukraine with his AIDS charity foundation, said on Saturday he wanted to adopt a 14-month-old boy from an orphanage in the east of the country.

It is the action hero dream team. Sylvester Stallone will shoot a scene with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger soon for his upcoming adventure The Expendables, due to hit theatres in 2010.

It may be hard to imagine actor Woody Harrelson, known for his work to legalize marijuana among other causes, as Hollywood's next superhero, so don't.

Cynicism and sentiment have melded magically in movies by some of the best American directors, from Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder to Alexander Payne.

Hard-hitting Israeli war movie Lebanon won the Golden Lion for best picture at the Venice film festival on Saturday.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said on Saturday he is ready to veto a bipartisan budget plan proposed by lawmakers to end a 10-week deadlock because it is out of balance and contains cuts to education and healthcare spending.