IBT Staff Reporter

Japan's housing starts plunged 44.0 percent in September, the sharpest fall on record, to 63,018 units as confusion and procedural delays over stiffer building regulations weighed on the housing market, the government said Wednesday.

In the UK the Competition Commission has released an initial report on the groceries industry saying that “the UK groceries market is delivering a good deal for consumers.”

U.S. oil hit a record over $95 a barrel on Wednesday, posting the biggest gain in 10 months after a steep drop in U.S. inventories fueled winter supply concerns and the U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates.

Wall Street bankers are flocking to the Middle East, and it's not for oil or the balmy weather.

U.S. auto sales are expected to have dipped slightly in October, as stepped-up incentive spending by automakers could not totally offset the drag from continued turmoil in the U.S. housing market, analysts said.

Sprint Nextel Corp, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service, is in talks to put applications from Web search leader Google Inc on its cell phones, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Google is in talks with some of the largest U.S. wireless carriers to make a deeper move into the mobile industry, an area it views as key to future growth.

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to lower its target for the federal funds rate 25 basis points to 4-1/2 percent.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point on Wednesday, hoping to forestall what policy makers see as further slowing of the economy in the near term due in part to the U.S. housing downturn. The Federal Open Market Committee cut the key federal funds rate to 4.5 percent on Tuesday in a bid to forestall damage to the broader economy from turmoil in financial markets.

Oil rallied to a record $94 a barrel on Wednesday after weekly data showed U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly slumped by 3.9 million barrels, countering expectations for an increase.

Buddhist monks in Myanmar staged a protest march on Wednesday, their first since soldiers crushed a pro-democracy uprising a month ago, as U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari prepared a return visit to the former Burma.

Iraq said on Wednesday it had set up more checkpoints to restrict the movement of Kurdish guerrillas and cut supply lines to their mountain hideouts following Turkey's demands for firm action against the rebels.

Canadian lobster and tuna fisherman Everett Condon had never traveled further south than the United States until this year, when he spent his off-season going to tango shows and getting plastic surgery in Argentina.

A Spanish court found 21 people guilty of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings but cleared three men of masterminding Europe's deadliest Islamist attack, which killed 191 people.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Wednesday it will begin offering this week the type of holiday discounts it typically reserves for Black Friday -- the day after Thanksgiving that typically marks the start of the ultra-competitive holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart has said it intends to be aggressive this holiday season to boost sales at its U.S. stores.

Oil rallied to $93 after U.S. weekly data showed that crude inventories fell by 3.9 million barrels, countering expectations for an increase.

Merger advisory firm Lazard Ltd said on Wednesday that third-quarter earnings more than doubled, beating expectations, on record fees from completed transactions and continued growth in its asset management arm.

MasterCard Inc said on Wednesday that quarterly earnings rose 63 percent, helped by rising spending volume and the sale of part of its stake in a Brazilian credit and debit card network.

Financial markets will take a few more months to recover from the credit crisis but the global economy was likely to withstand the shock, Standard Chartered Bank's Mervyn Davies said on Wednesday.

Deutsche Bank warned on Wednesday its biggest money spinner, investment banking, would stay sluggish after a global market crunch pushed the business into the red for first time in half a decade.

Bombardier Inc said on Wednesday that its Chinese joint venture received an order for 640 high-speed train cars from the Chinese Ministry of Railways.

Japan's Hitachi Ltd, which makes consumer electronics and nuclear reactors, posted a narrower first-half loss on booming sales of power plant equipment, but it kept its full-year outlook as losses continue for its flat TVs and hard drives.

India's Ranbaxy Laboratories may get a strategic partner for its research unit that will be listed next year, and expects deals to sell products of global firms in emerging markets, its chief executive said.

Taiwan's stock exchange is in talks with major bourses in New York and Germany, seeking to boost its profile abroad through tie-ups with major global players, its chairman said on Wednesday.

The impact of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has been limited in Asia and will be limited because of ample cash in the region's banking systems, a top Citigroup official said on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve is expected to lower benchmark borrowing costs modestly on Wednesday as an additional bulwark against the risk a housing slump and tighter credit drag down the rest of the economy.

Stocks rose on Wednesday, fueled by investors' expectations the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later on Wednesday and a stronger-than-expected performance by the economy in the third quarter.

Facebook, the social networking Internet site that is sweeping the globe with a quarter million new members every day, has targeted the world's second-largest Internet market, registering a local Web address in China.

Google Inc will offer Internet developers an open system to create applications across Web sites, a move that could challenge the features behind the explosive popularity of social network Facebook.

Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp are supplying Libya's government with 150,000 rugged laptop computers that cost $200 to build and are designed to meet the needs of children in developing countries.