IBT Staff Reporter

Southeast Asian nations plan to sign a charter in Singapore next week aiming for lofty goals in areas such as free trade and human rights even as the 40-year-old group wrestles with how to handle the divisive issue of Myanmar. The West has urged the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) to put more pressure on Myanmar's junta after its crackdown on pro-democracy protests, but the group's principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs is likely to prevail.

Emergency teams delivered water and food and set up emergency tents in dusty towns in northern Chile on Thursday as aftershocks shook nerves a day after a powerful earthquake killed two people and injured more than 100.

Growth in New York State manufacturing sector slowed in November on weaker new orders and inventory activity, and a spike in material costs, New York Federal Reserve said on Thursday.

Hyundai Motor Co is planning to start building a $400 million car manufacturing plant in northwest Russia in 2008, the local government said on Thursday.

The rising Canadian dollar knocked down the value of Canadian manufacturing shipments by 0.9 percent in September to their lowest since October 2006, Statistics Canada said on Thursday.

Leading Taiwan food conglomerate Uni-President Enterprises plans to spin off its mainland Chinese business in a Hong Kong IPO worth up to US$700 million, sources familiar with the deal said on Thursday.

New applications for U.S. jobless aid rose more than expected to 339,000 last week, and the more-reliable four-week moving average held steady at a 6-month high, government data released on Thursday showed.

Consumer prices rose a brisk 0.3 percent in October, which was in line with expectations and driven by the sharpest rise in energy costs in five months, the government reported on Thursday. The Consumer Price Index, the most broadly used gauge of inflation, rose at the same rate as in September, which was the steepest rise since a 0.7 jump in May, according to the Labor Department report.

Expedia Inc, owner of the largest U.S. online travel agency, and InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, the world's largest hotelier, have entered a deal that offers its rooms on Expedia sites globally, the two companies said on Thursday.

Zurich Financial Services Group's nine-month net profit rose 25 percent, outstripping expectations, and the Swiss insurer announced a further round of cost savings.

A demand from European Union lawmakers to regulate how authors and composers receive cash for downloaded works has been rejected by the bloc's executive arm.

Citibank will aggressively consider launching a holding company in South Korea, in line with revised local laws, and will expand distribution channels to grow its market share, the head of its Korean unit said on Thursday.

Here's some good news from the world of money: The quality of professional financial advice is getting better and more affordable, just in time for all the folks who are probably feeling overwhelmed by the myriad details of their own financial lives

ABN AMRO said on Thursday its private banking arm had hired a team of six private bankers from rival HSBC Holdings Plc in Taiwan, the latest move to highlight the industry's fierce battle for talent in high-growth Asia.

For a ruler who's given himself ultimate powers, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has provoked an awful lot of doubt over how long he can survive.

An unprecedented vaccination campaign has produced strong results in fighting polio in India and if sustained, the crippling disease could be eradicated in the next two years, a top WHO expert said.

Dusty Old English poem Beowulf, long required reading in schools, goes Hollywood this coming Friday in a bit of high-tech animated movie trickery that its makers are loath to call animation.

Two new video games from Sony and Nintendo have players exploring jungle islands for lost treasure or skipping across the galaxy to save a kidnapped princess.

Tyco International Ltd reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings from continuing operations on Thursday, helped by demand in its valves and pipes segment, even as the company's exit from some businesses drove net income down 85 percent.

Barclays Plc, Britain's third-biggest bank, unveiled a 1.3 billion pound ($2.7 billion) writedown for losses on securities linked to the U.S. subprime housing crisis, less than was feared. In a surprise trading update on Thursday, the Barclays Capital investment bank unit said it would write down 500 million pounds for the July-September quarter and 800 million pounds for October.

IBM is staking out a major new source of business helping clients like banks or retailers manage data centers on a par with Internet players such as Google or Microsoft, a top official said on Wednesday.

Major finance houses went some way on Wednesday to reassure investors that after months of credit market havoc, fallout from the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown is containable.

Sun Microsystems said on Wednesday at Oracle’s Openworld that it has entered a distribution agreement with Dell, for its Solaris operating system.

China Unicom, one of the largest communications companies in China, is willing to discuss introducing Apple’s popular iPhone to the Chinese market, a management person of China Unicom Ltd. said on Wednesday.

Merrill Lynch & Co Inc on Wednesday named NYSE Euronext Chief Executive John Thain as its new CEO, a move that acknowledges it needed an outsider with a Goldman Sachs pedigree to repair an image battered by wrong-way bets on subprime mortgages. Thain, 52, replaces Stan O'Neal, who was ousted as Merrill's CEO and chairman last month after the company wrote down $8.4 billion in assets during the third quarter.

Adobe Systems former CEO Bruce Chizen is swiftly transferring the reigns to newly appointed CEO Shantanu Narayen as they look towards the ……, said in New York on Wednesday.

Motorola President and Chief Operating Officer Greg Brown said Tuesday that one of his top priorities in the near term is to bolster the company’s consumer mobile phones division.

AT&T Inc plans on Wednesday to introduce a nationwide program giving owners of small- and medium-size businesses some of the same tools big security firms offer for remotely monitoring employees, customers and operations, the New York Times said in its online edition.

The vast Three-Gorges dam is meant to subdue the Yangtze River but rising water levels are raising alarms.