IBT Staff Reporter

Boeing Co on Monday welcomed the chance to upgrade the U.S. Army's 95 remaining A-model Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, noting its Apache deliveries had been on time and within budget for the past 10 years.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Monday if elected he would push to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight conclave of major industrial nations to punish Moscow for rolling back political freedoms.

The dollar eased against the yen and euro on Monday, weighed down by weakness in the U.S. stock market after comments by a top Citigroup official raised anew concerns about global credit.

President George W. Bush ratcheted up the pressure on U.S. Democrats on Monday to adhere to his budget plans or face a string of vetoes on government spending bills.

Oil jumped nearly 3 percent to a record over $86 a barrel on Monday as fresh tensions in the Middle East added to worries of a supply crunch when cold weather stokes up heating demand this winter. Oil prices have more than quadrupled since 2002 but remain below the inflation adjusted peak of around $90 a barrel struck after the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Alan Mulally said on Monday he is pleased with the breadth and depth of interest in Ford's British luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover.

Thirty Chinese central Stated-owned enterprises (SOEs) are planning overall listing, the China Business today cited an insider close to the State-owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) as saying.

Swiss Re joined those circling 5 billion pound ($10 billion) takeover target Resolution on Monday, confirming it may back potential bidder Standard Life by taking on some Resolution assets.

British billionaire Richard Branson said on Monday his Virgin Group hopes to produce clean biofuels by around the start of the next decade and early next year will test a jet plane on renewable fuel.Virgin hopes to provide clean fuel for buses, trains and cars within three or four years, Branson told a Mortgage Bankers Association meeting in Boston.

Gold struck a 28-year high on Monday, with the metal's appeal polished by a weak dollar, record high oil prices and geo-political tensions, while continued supply worries swept platinum to lifetime peaks.

Stable gasoline prices over the last two months have shielded U.S. consumers from the impact of galloping crude oil prices, but drivers will face more pain at the pump if the cost of crude remains high into next spring.

The UK Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) released figures this Monday which gave greater weight to the belief that house price inflation is finally slowing down.

Broadcom Corp said on Monday it had developed an integrated third-generation (3G) high-speed wireless cell phone chip ahead of bigger rivals Texas Instruments Inc and Qualcomm Inc, sending Broadcom shares up as much as 3 percent.

U.S. stocks fell on Monday, led lower by the financial services sector after Citigroup Inc offered a gloomier outlook and worries resurfaced about the stability of the buyout market.

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, said on Monday it has not participated in talks with big U.S. banks forming an US$80 billion fund to buy ailing mortgage securities and other assets, and added there are no plans for a similar fund in Europe.

India's No. 2 lender, ICICI Bank, expects to sustain 70 percent growth in its private wealth management business this year on the back of rising affluence, a senior official said on Monday.

French food group Danone will sell its 20 percent stake in major Chinese dairy producer Bright Dairy and Food Co, the Chinese company said on Monday.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's top software services exporter, beat forecasts with a 25.7 percent jump in quarterly profit on Monday as it won large outsourcing deals and raised fees for customers.

China Shipping Container Lines Co aims to list in Shanghai by the end of this year to fund its purchase of container assets from its parent and to expand its fleet by 44 percent over the next few years, sending its shares to a record high.

Airbus handed the first A380 superjumbo to Singapore Airlines on Monday in a slick ceremony designed to lift its image after two years of setbacks, but was forced to deny rumours of another bout of delays.

The U.S. Federal Reserve said on Monday it added $14.75 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system through overnight repurchase agreements.

The consortium that agreed to buy student lender Sallie Mae for $25 billion said on Monday it has offered to terminate their agreement.

Green -- not greed -- is good these days, especially if you're rich and want to be seen to care. Some clients are increasingly seeking environmentally friendly investments and ways to minimize their impact on the environment, their private bankers said at the Reuters Wealth Management Summit in Geneva.

A financial services company is fronting a drive to get businesses to give their workers one hour per month off work to tackle money issues.

U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Myanmar on Monday to stop arresting dissidents and Thailand proposed a regional forum including China and India to nudge the reclusive military junta towards democratic reform.

The notion that the U.S. is no longer the driver of world economic growth is in vogue on Wall Street, yet the idea that Europe and Asia have "decoupled" from the American economic engine may be more an investor hope than a sound investment theory.

Central Europe has evolved from a collection of Soviet Communist satellite states into the most dynamic part of the capitalist European Union in less than a generation.

Time Warner Inc's Internet unit AOL will eliminate 2,000 jobs as part of an ongoing restructuring to better focus on boosting online advertising, according to a memo obtained by Reuters on Monday.

General Motors Corp said on Monday it will shift $16 billion from an existing trust fund to a new entity that will take over $47 billion in health-care obligations for some 270,000 union-represented retirees.