IBT Staff Reporter

Oil prices crept up toward $71 a barrel on Tuesday, spurred by record fuel imports to the world's second biggest energy user China, but the market was cautious ahead of the next sets of supply and demand data.

Britain's Resolution , an acquisitions vehicle founded by entrepreneur Clive Cowdery, clinched its first deal on Tuesday with the 1.86 billion pound ($3.1 billion) takeover of insurer Friends Provident .

Adecco, the world's largest staffing group, said on Tuesday it had still not seen any recovery in its main European and U.S. markets and launched a new round of cost-cutting to protect profitability after a sharp drop in sales in the second quarter.

InterContinental Hotels, the world's biggest hotelier, said a recovery for the industry might be two years away after reporting first-half profit that fell but beat forecasts.

Futures for the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose 0.2-0.3 percent, pointing to a firmer start on Wall Street on Tuesday.

Adecco, the world's largest staffing company, missed forecasts with a second-quarter loss as one-off charges weighed, and said it was buying the UK's Spring Group to boost its professional staffing business.

The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

World stocks ticked slightly higher on Tuesday and Japan's Nikkei hit a 10-month closing high despite disappointing Chinese data that drove up the yen.

The total value of distressed-debt deals, where creditors use their debt positions to take ownership of troubled companies, has touched $84.4 billion this year, the Wall Street Journal said, at a pace close to double that of 2008.

Oil rose above $71 on Tuesday, ending a three-day losing streak as record Chinese oil imports and refinery production helped offset mixed economic data, while traders anticipated key reports on the state of global demand.

Oil rose below $71 a barrel on Tuesday, ending a three-day losing streak ahead of U.S. data expected to show a fall in gasoline stocks, with weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data acting as a drag.

An explosion in a northern Slovak coal mine most likely killed 20 miners on Monday in the central European country's worst mining disaster.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday proposed legislation to give him the legal basis to send troops abroad to defend Russia's interests, the Kremlin said.

Israel will hold Lebanon responsible for any future Hezbollah attack should the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militia be brought into Beirut's incoming government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

Divers in New York's Hudson River on Monday found the body of the eighth victim of a midair collision of a helicopter and small plane that killed nine people, but they were unable to dislodge it from the underwater wreckage, authorities said.

Taliban bombers, some disguised as women with suicide vests hidden under their burqas, stormed government buildings near Kabul on Monday in a brazen strike just 10 days before a presidential election.

A court in army-ruled Myanmar on Tuesday found opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi guilty of violating an internal security law, a ruling certain to anger the West and further isolate the regime.

A strong earthquake jolted Tokyo and surrounding areas early Tuesday morning, throwing food and bottles from store shelves, disrupting transport and closing a nuclear power plant for safety checks.

The Treasury Department should consider expanding programs to cleanse troubled assets from bank balance sheets if current efforts fail to restart markets or if economic conditions worsen, a U.S. bailout watchdog panel said on Tuesday.

Australia brushed off on Tuesday a Chinese report accusing iron ore miner Rio Tinto Ltd of overcharging and spying on Chinese steel mills, saying it had not been officially sanctioned.

Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto has yet to be presented with any evidence to support the detention of four of its China-based staff on suspicions of stealing state secrets, the firm said on Tuesday.

Oil was steady below $71 a barrel on Tuesday ahead of U.S. data expected to show a fall in gasoline stocks, with weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data acting as a drag.

Oil was steady below $71 a barrel on Tuesday ahead of U.S. data expected to show a fall in gasoline stocks, with weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data acting as a drag.

The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

Oil edged up toward $71 a barrel on Tuesday, ending a three-day losing streak, ahead of U.S. data expected to show a fall in gasoline stocks but the market also watched for signs from China of further economic strengthening.

Despite some slightly disappointing home loan and investment lending data out of Australia yesterday the Aussie dollar edged higher in Asia bouncing back from an early Monday morning sell off to 0.8330.

Bonus saga not over, New Test for GM, Hedge Insiders

Lone Star Funds joined other big private equity names in opposing proposed U.S. rules for investments in failed banks, as a designated period for public comment on the draft regulations comes to an end on Monday.

Dell is set to release a mobile phone on the Chinese market soon in cooperation with China Mobile, China Mobile released in its developers community website.