IBT Staff Reporter

Companies that service risky residential mortgages are warning U.S. officials that a key program to slow foreclosures may push some financing costs higher and derail their efforts, said a leading subprime firm.

The United States said on Wednesday no deal had been reached so far in talks to settle a tax evasion dispute with UBS AG and it expected a trial against the Swiss bank to go ahead as scheduled on Monday.

Tata Steel Ltd, the world's No. 8 steel maker by output, on Wednesday reported a larger-than-expected 47 percent fall in June quarter profit from its Indian operations as realisations fell sharply on lower commodity prices.

Senior U.S. housing officials and leading mortgage companies met on Tuesday to set explicit goals for preventing evictions and helping struggling borrowers with their home loans.

A Taiwanese proposal for an agreement establishing closer links with China could add up to 1.72 percent to Taiwan's gross domestic product, according to a think tank report commissioned by the economics ministry.

BMW confirmed it would leave Formula One racing at the end of 2009 for image reasons as the maker of sporty luxury cars wants to focus on sustainability and the environment. We are of the opinion that the premium segment has to remain a positive role model within our society, Chief Executive Norbert Reithofer said in a statement on Wednesday.

Oil dropped nearly 6 percent on Wednesday to $63 a barrel after data showed a surge in U.S. crude inventories on higher imports and lower refinery activity.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh defended efforts to improve ties with Pakistan on Wednesday in a sign the government is moving toward resuming a stalled peace dialogue with Islamabad despite opposition pressure.

Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc inked a 10-year Web search deal to better compete against market leader Google Inc but stopped short of combining their display advertising businesses.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he is willing to visit North Korea to help defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Iranian authorities will release reformist Saeed Hajjarian on Wednesday, the judiciary said, more than six weeks after he was detained with hundreds of others after Iran's disputed presidential election.

Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co surprised markets by eking out small profits last quarter helped by cost cuts, but a sustained recovery looks some way off with demand relying largely on government stimulus.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States may be starting to see the end of the 19-month recession and that his policies helped the country from plunging into a depression.

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday.

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis raised its earnings growth goal for the year and outlined new cost savings to help it cope with the effect on profit of patent expiries on a number of its top drugs.

Search engine giant Google Inc said it was interested in Microsoft's 10-year search deal with Yahoo announced on Wednesday, adding that competition was usually good for online users.

Sprint Nextel Corp posted a wider quarterly loss and revenue fell 10 percent as the No. 3 U.S. mobile service continued to lose valuable monthly bill-paying customers. Its shares fell more than 10 percent.

Michael Jackson's personal chef Kai Chase revealed details about the role of Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray amid investigations surrounding the physician linked to the death of the King of the Pop.

Defense contractor General Dynamics Corp reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday and boosted its full-year forecast as revenues improved in all its business segments.

The top U.S. futures market regulator would strip liquidity needed to make the market run efficiently if it failed to allow certain traders to exceed position limits, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive said Wednesday.

Top Asian and European semiconductor manufacturers gave optimistic forecasts for the second half of the year as they saw demand and prices improving, but said they would continue to monitor the market closely.

Is it possible to tell how happy we all are?

New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods notched their biggest decline in five months in June, while applications for mortgages fell last week in a sign that economic conditions remain fragile.

ConocoPhillips reported a 76 percent drop in quarterly profits on Wednesday, as oil prices fell sharply from a year earlier and heavy fuel supplies and weak demand hurt its refining business.

Analyst said software budgets will increase 1.53% globally in 2010, according to a Gartner survey on Tuesday, amid reductions in IT budgets in enterprises.

The U.S. housing market may finally have turned around after three years, given the rise in the widely-watched Case-Shiller home price index for May, the developers of the index told Reuters on Tuesday.

New orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods fell more sharply than expected in June, notching their biggest decline in five months as demand for communications and transportation equipment slumped, a government report showed on Wednesday.

Health insurer WellPoint Inc posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, but its shares dropped 4.1 percent as revenue missed analysts' estimates and the company failed to increase its full-year earnings forecast.

Property services company FirstService Corp (FSV.TO) reported a quarterly net loss on Wednesday, hurt by a drop in revenue in its commercial real estate unit and a deferred income tax charge.