IBT Staff Reporter

Opel labor leader Klaus Franz branded Volkswagen's renewed threat to pull business from Canadian auto parts supplier Magna if it acquires VW's closest German rival as tantamount to blackmail.

Aug 15, 2009

Scrutiny of an air traffic controller's actions, including whether a phone call may have distracted him, intensified on Friday as investigators released new details about the deadly collision of a small plane and a tourist helicopter over New York's Hudson River last week.

Aug 15, 2009

U.S. Senator Jim Webb met Myanmar top military leader Than Shwe and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday and announced the release of an American jailed for visiting the Nobel peace laureate.

Aug 15, 2009

President Barack Obama said on Saturday U.S. healthcare worked better for insurance companies than for patients, as he pressed his case for a major overhaul that critics say is too expensive.

Aug 15, 2009

Mexico's Cemex, the world's No. 3 cement maker, said on Friday it finalized a $15 billion debt restructuring to avoid default and announced it could sell shares worth about $1.7 billion as part of the deal.

Aug 15, 2009

The Syrian unit of Qatar National Bank (QNB) said on Saturday a 1.7 billion Syrian pounds ($36.9 million) initial public offering was oversubscribed 1.7 times.

Aug 15, 2009

The previous chief executive of Volkswagen, Bernd Pischetsrieder, is favourite to head the supervisory board of German car parts maker Continental AG, magazine Der Spiegel reported, without saying where it obtained its information.

Aug 15, 2009

Facebook's vision of becoming a utility that offers activities to keep people online for hours could set it on a collision course with the Web's giants.

Aug 15, 2009

A consortium dominated by Swedish owners plans to bid for Ford Motor Co's Volvo car unit, a Swedish business daily reported on Saturday without disclosing its sources.

Aug 15, 2009

China's 12 joint-stock commercial banks posted net profit of 45.2 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) in the first half of this year, down 19.3 percent from a year earlier, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday, quoting a banking regulatory official.

Aug 15, 2009

Hedge fund Citadel, which launched an investment banking group earlier this year, has hired a senior Citigroup Inc financial institutions investment banker, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Aug 15, 2009

Islamic lender Kuwait Finance House (KFH) is tying up with United States apartment building owner UDR Inc to buy high income property in the United States to tap lower asset prices.

Aug 15, 2009

A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge on Friday issued an initial determination in favor of Nokia Oyj in an action brought by InterDigital Inc against Nokia.

Aug 15, 2009

Back in 1969, Woodstock organizers billed their three-day festival as An Aquarian Exposition. But although the concert became free when an expected crowd of 200,000 grew half a million strong, it was conceived as a business proposition.

Aug 15, 2009

A group of Asian manufacturers filed court papers on Friday in an attempt to push U.S. women's apparel brand Ellen Tracy into bankruptcy.

Aug 15, 2009

A massive rally in U.S. stocks since March has reawakened bullish spirits, but insiders are jumping out of the market in a sign the run up is getting stretched.

Aug 14, 2009

Colonial Bank, of Montgomery Ala., was shuttered on Friday and its assets sold to southeast regional bank BB&T Corp, marking the largest bank failure this year.

Aug 14, 2009

The Legg Mason Inc unit run by star fund manager Bill Miller sold off a number of financial stocks in the second quarter, filings on Friday showed.

Aug 14, 2009

Billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc reported on Friday a new 1.2 million share investment in Becton Dickinson & Co and an increased stake in Johnson & Johnson , as it boosted exposure to some health-care companies.

Aug 14, 2009

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros' Soros Fund Management reported holdings of $4.2 billion at the end of the second quarter after cutting its stake in a number of retailers.

Aug 14, 2009

The U.S. official responsible for setting pay for top executives at finance firms that received billions of dollars in government aid will take his time and conduct his work in private, a spokesman said on Friday.

Aug 14, 2009

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said in a statement on Friday that regulators have closed Colonial Bank and Southeast regional bank BB&T will buy about $22 billion in assets of Colonial.

Aug 14, 2009

Latin American stocks and currencies posted losses on Friday after U.S. consumer sentiment weakened unexpectedly in August, raising questions about the strength of the economic recovery and increasing global aversion to risk.

Aug 14, 2009

President Barack Obama has signed the cash for clunkers program into law on June 24.

Aug 14, 2009

The founder of the defunct British online gambling firm BetOnSports pleaded guilty in U.S. court on Friday and agreed to forfeit more than $43 million in criminal proceeds, the Justice Department said.

Aug 14, 2009

The French Defense Ministry said on Friday the missing Arctic Sea cargo ship has been spotted near Cape Verde.

Aug 14, 2009

Wall Street's top cop has a lot to prove and its been taking no prisoners.

Aug 14, 2009

U.S. crude oil futures settled down $3.01 to $67.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday after a report showed consumer sentiment in early August was weak. Seven of the top ten best paid chief executive officers in the United States last year belong to oil companies.

Aug 14, 2009

Search market leader Google Inc holds greater loyalty among its users, who conduct more searches a month than those on Yahoo! and Microsoft, new data issued on Friday showed, posing a challenge for the new team of rivals to Google.

Aug 14, 2009