IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday after U.S. consumer confidence data showed a surprise drop, raising doubts about the speed of an economic recovery, and falling oil prices sank energy shares.

Zimbabwe has secured $950 million in credit from China to help rebuild its economy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Tuesday, the biggest offer from a single country since the unity government was formed.

Europe's biggest betting firm, OPAP, said on Tuesday it had renegotiated a binding sales agreement with sales agents in Greece, a move that will help shield it from any possible deregulation of the Greek gaming market.

A day after Pirate Bay unveils its new streaming site - The Video Bay -that will compete with sites like YouTube and Hulu, the popular BitTorrent search engine said it will be bought out by a gaming company Global Gaming Factory X for $7.8 million.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will strongly urge Myanmar's ruling generals to release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, when he visits the country this week, he told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Saudi Aramco and U.S. ConocoPhillips said on Tuesday they would relaunch bidding for the 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) Yanbu refinery.

The total output of China's forestry industry rose 13% in 2008 to 1.33 trillion yuan ($194.7 billion), a senior forestry official said in a conference ended on Sunday.

Oil prices fell more than 3 percent to $69 a barrel on Tuesday, pressured by a stronger U.S. dollar and as weak consumer confidence data hit equities.

Deere & Co said on Tuesday that roughly 800 employees -- more than it had expected -- took a buyout from the world's largest maker of agricultural machinery and raised the amount of the charge associated with those departures.

Iraq takes a major step toward reasserting its sovereignty on Tuesday when U.S. combat troops hand urban areas over to its relatively untested police and soldiers.

The discount for copper scrap has widened in recent weeks as the copper futures price remains at elevated levels and business in recycled metal slows to a crawl amid the seasonal summer slowdown.

Tengzhong's plan to buy Hummer was still being examined by concerned departments and there had been no definitive result toward approval, authorities in Sichuan Province confirmed on Monday.

U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.

Iraq regained full control of its towns and cities on Tuesday, declaring the day a national holiday for Iraqis to celebrate the withdrawal of U.S. troops, six years after invading to topple Saddam Hussein.

At least 16 people were killed and 50 injured overnight in Italy when a freight train hauling liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded as it passed their homes, officials said Tuesday.

An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board, including 66 French nationals, crashed into the sea off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros as it approached in bad weather early on Tuesday, officials said.

Ten or more people associated with multibillion dollar swindler Bernard Madoff could face criminal charges in investigations in the coming months or beyond, a law enforcement source said on Tuesday.

A General Motors Corp bankruptcy court hearing in which the company is seeking to sell its main assets to a New GM began on Tuesday but moved to a recess almost immediately as the judge dealt with communication issues.

Stocks fell on Tuesday after U.S. consumer confidence data showed a surprise drop in June, raising doubts about the speed on an economic recovery.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's top software services firm by sales, sees flat business growth in its fiscal first quarter that ended on Tuesday as economic downturn crimped outsourcing, its chairman said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday hailed his disputed re-election as a victory for the Iranian people and a defeat for the Islamic Republic's enemies.

American International Group Inc , the insurer rescued by $180 billion of federal bailouts, on Tuesday expressed optimism it will be able to repay government loans as it tries to rebound from punishing losses tied to derivatives.

Mining group Xstrata confirmed its $1 billion estimate of synergies for its proposed merger with rival Anglo American after its advisors were quoted in newspapers saying the number could be much higher.

General Motors Corp cut operational ties on Monday to a northern California auto plant it had operated in a joint-venture with Toyota Motor Corp for a quarter of a century.

China's state-owned Chinalco is taking up its full entitlement to Rio Tinto's $15.2 billion share issue, media reports said on Tuesday, with trade in the rights suggesting Chinalco is far from severing its ties with the Anglo-Australian miner.

Oil fell to around $70 a barrel on Tuesday, pressured by a stronger U.S. dollar and falling equities after weak U.S. consumer confidence data.

Dell Inc, the worlds No.2 PC maker, is developing a pocket-sized device for tapping into the Internet, the Wall Street Journal said citing people familiar with the company's plans.

A video showing Maria Belen Chapur, the Argentinean woman which South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford confessed having an affair with, has been published in Argentinean and U.S. media and is the first and only image of her so far.

New GM. It has been the mantra General Motors Corp. has adopted since it officially determined that the once venerable American car company had to radically change its plans for the future.