IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is considering whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation practices involving the CIA, and is expected to make a decision in a few weeks, a Justice Department official said on Sunday.

Sonia Sotomayor looks almost certain to emerge from Senate hearings this week poised to become the first Hispanic member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

An uneasy calm returned on Sunday to China's riot-hit Urumqi where 184 people died in ethnic violence a week ago, though the official tally of dead could rise, a regional official indicated.

At $399, the Torqx is still at the high-end of the price spectrum, however, the Torqx provides the performance of top-notch SSD's at a fraction of the price.

The U.S. government and UBS AG asked a federal judge on Sunday to delay the start of a closely-watched trial, as they seek to resolve their dispute over U.S. demands for the identities of thousands of wealthy Americans suspected of using the Swiss bank to dodge taxes.

Brazil authorities on Sunday detained the wife of former boxer Arturo Gatti, 37, as a suspect following his death at a resort in northern Brazil, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. government and UBS AG asked a federal judge on Sunday to delay the opening of a closely-watched trial, as they seek to resolve their dispute over U.S. demands for the identities of thousands of wealthy Americans suspected of using the Swiss bank to dodge taxes.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it was too soon to decide whether the U.S. economy would need the help of a second round of government stimulus to recover from recession.

Australia warned China on Sunday of the risks to business confidence from the detention without charge of an Australian executive accused of stealing state secrets, and Chinese executives feared a wider purge.

The Australian government is prepared for a long haul in dealing with China's detention of a senior Australian mining executive on suspicion of stealing state secrets, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said on Sunday.

China raised the death toll from ethnic rioting in Xinjiang, giving for the first time the ethnicity of the dead, and a big security presence in the city at the center of the strife prevented protests on Saturday.

Cardinal Health Inc said its board of directors approved the spinoff of its medical products company CareFusion.

AllianceBernstein became the latest of the nine firms awarded the right to take part in the U.S. Treasury's toxic debt investment plan to seek capital from the equity markets.

President Barack Obama said Saturday more time was needed for his $787 billion stimulus package to work, predicting the spending would have a bigger impact on the economy later this year.

A consortium of three local governments in Indonesia have appointed PT Multicapital to help finance the purchase of a 10 percent stake in a unit of Newmont Mining Corp, a local mining official said on Saturday.

Beijing Capital International Airport, the country's biggest airport operator, has reaffirmed a plan to list shares on the domestic market within the year, a state-run newspaper said on Saturday.

XO Holdings Inc Chairman and billionaire investor Carl Icahn on Friday offered to buy the shares in the communications company that he does not already own for 55 cents each.

Japan's Nomura has bought a 35 percent stake in LIC Mutual Fund in a deal which values the Indian fund firm at 8 billion rupees ($163 million).

NetApp Inc may itself become an acquisition target after rival EMC Corp foiled its effort to buy Data Domain Inc, a niche player in the $20 billion-a-year data storage equipment market.

Britain's largest gas retailer, Centrica Plc, which operates under the British Gas brand, made a $2 billion bid for North Sea gas producer Venture Production Plc on Friday as it seeks to increase its gas reserves.

State-run Saudi Electricity Company has invited bidders for a 2,000 megawatt power plant project in Riyadh as part of efforts to meet soaring demand, a senior company official said on Saturday.

Media moguls at this week's Sun Valley conference have spent as much time discussing how to reconfigure business models disrupted by the Web as they have worrying about the weak economy.

The two American journalists who were detained and later convicted in North Korea have not been sent to a prison labor camp and are being kept at a guest house in Pyongyang, political scientist Han S. Park from the University of Georgia said on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

Walking the pharmacy aisle of a Target Corp discount store, shoppers can't miss the many anti-shoplifting measures: locked display cases, alarm cords around boxes of expensive merchandise, display hangers with locks on the end.

NASA has canceled Saturday's launch attempt of space shuttle Endeavour on a construction mission to the International Space Station to assess possible damage from overnight lightning strikes, officials said.

Volkswagen has sweetened its bid to purchase almost half of sports car maker Porsche AG and is prepared to offer considerably more than 4 billion euros ($5.58 billion), Germany's Der Spiegel reported.

The tax-evasion case first gained notoriety in June last year, when it was revealed that a former UBS AG banker once smuggled a client's diamonds into the United States in a toothpaste tube to avoid detection by U.S. authorities.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Africans on Saturday that Western aid must be matched by good governance and urged them to take greater responsibility for stamping out war, corruption and disease plaguing the continent.

President Barack Obama in a response to criticism that his administration's $787 billion stimulus bill has failed to help pull the economy out of the recession said the Recovery Act has worked as intended.