IBT Staff Reporter

Asian share markets gained for a second session on Wednesday as blockbuster results from tech bellweather Intel Corp seemed to augur well for the U.S. earnings season and for consumer demand globally.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics plans to invest about 500 billion won ($389 million) in the biotech medicine business, a local internet news provider said on Wednesday, quoting a top policymaker.

U.S. asset manager Franklin Resources Inc has dropped out of a consortium negotiating to buy American International Group Inc's asset management unit, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

China has warned its citizens in Algeria about possible attacks from al Qaeda in retribution for a Chinese government crackdown in the Muslim region of Xinjiang.

The U.S. Treasury Department and Federal Reserve are considering giving CIT Group Inc a temporary government loan to give it breathing room to strengthen its balance sheet, a source familiar with regulators' thinking said on Tuesday.

It took a child to stump the creators of the Blackberry, one of the world's top selling smartphones and a part of most executives' attire.

A Los Angeles blogger who leaked new Guns N' Roses songs on the Internet before their official release on the band's first new album in 17 years, was sentenced to two months of home confinement on Tuesday.

An attorney for Michael Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe on Tuesday angrily denied reports that she had agreed to take millions of dollars to give up parental rights to her two children with the King of Pop.

Goldman soars, High Earner Tax Targets, Exxon's biofuel

Intel Corp's quarterly results and outlook blew past Wall Street forecasts on better-than-expected consumer demand for PCs, especially in Asia, setting an auspicious tone for the technology sector.

Former General Motors Corp Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, ousted in March by the Obama administration, will voluntarily retire on August 1 with sharply reduced benefits, the company said on Tuesday.

Former General Motors Corp Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, ousted in March by the Obama administration, will retire in August with a package worth $8.6 million in the first five years, the company said on Tuesday.

A Vietnamese security researcher said they discovered the IP address of the master server which was used in attacking the United States and Korean government agency.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday tentatively invalidated several Rambus Inc patents key to the microchip designer's disputes against graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp.

Worldwide OLED first quarter revenue fell 8 percent, according to DisplaySearch on Tuesday but its AMOLED revenue was up to 17 percent in the quarter.

China on Tuesday denied restrictions on cooperation between domestic and foreign companies, saying the allegedly Rio spy case won't hamper iron ore talks.

Microsoft is going to open its 'Windows Marketplace Business Center' for Developers on July 27, this year. The announcement was made in an ongoing Worldwide Partner Conference event in New Orleans.

Continental Airlines said on Tuesday it expects to record $44 million in special charges in the second quarter largely due to its decision last year to retire all its Boeing 737-300s and many 737-500s.

A experimental drug being developed by Roche blocks a common biological pathway linked to the spread of many cancers and has proved highly effective in mice, scientists said on Wednesday.

Users of Microsoft's Office software for Windows PCs have suffered from attacks since last week through a zero-day leak, and local newspaper in China reported on Tuesday one million Chinese suffered from the attack since June 6.

Yum Brands Inc , parent of the Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC chains, said a lower-than-expected tax rate helped it report a quarterly profit that topped analysts' view, but it didn't raise its earnings outlook for 2009 and its shares fell 3.3 percent.

CBS Corp and 17 other networks will participate in Comcast Corp.'s technical trial to offer television shows online, in an effort to give customers more options and more advertising possibilities to content owners.

MetLife Inc, the largest American life insurer, said on Tuesday that it plans to combine some U.S. businesses as part of a revamp it undertook to increase growth opportunities.

Intel Corp's second-quarter results blew past Wall Street's expectations and the chip maker gave a forecast for current-quarter revenue that also topped analysts' estimates.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) on Tuesday portrayed its energy trading as hedging that should be exempt from proposed U.S. government limits on the volume of contracts that speculators can trade.

Hong Kong's H1N1 tally has reached1389 with 62 new cases conformed within 24 hours, among whom one is in critical situation, the Department of Health (DH) said on Tuesday.

Microsoft Corp warned that cybercriminals have attacked users of its Office software for Windows PCs, exploiting a programing flaw that the software giant has yet to repair.

Yum Brands Inc , parent of the Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC chains, cut its full-year forecast for sales on weakness in its two biggest markets, the United States and China, and its shares fell 3.9 percent.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. posted record second quarter earnings as revenue from trading and stock underwriting delivered all time high results. Revenue at the New York-based bank jumped 46 percent to $13.8 billion compared to the same period last year. Net earnings grew 65 percent to $3.43 billion compared to a year ago.