IBT Staff Reporter

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.

Shares of Asia's top oil and gas company, PetroChina Co Ltd, jumped 13 percent on Monday as news of increased production and hopes of major new discoveries spurred optimism about its performance in the fourth quarter.

The latest movie from writer/director/actor Tyler Perry crushed some high-powered competition at the weekend box office in North America, earning more than the combined total of films starring Oscar winners George Clooney and Cate Blanchett.According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, Perry's romantic comedy-drama Why Did I Get Married? sold $21.5 million worth of tickets. It ended the two-week reign of the family comedy The Game Plan, which slipped to a distant No. 2 with $11.5 million.Clooney's legal drama Michael Clayton jumped 19 places to No. 3 after expanding nationally in its second weekend. It earned $11 million, tying with We Own the Night, a new crime drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg.Blanchett took the No. 6 spot with the historical drama Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which opened to a disappointing $6.2 million. Just ahead of her was the Ben Stiller comedy The Heartbreak Kid with $7.4 million in its second weekend.Perry's Why Did I Get Married? revolves around the turbulent lives of four married couples, and he is joined in the cast by Janet Jackson and Jill Scott.Industry pundits had largely marked down the movie's chances, despite Perry's success with such chart-toppers as 2005's Diary of a Mad Black Woman ($21.9 million opening), and 2006's Madea's Family Reunion ($30 million opening).This is the last time that anyone will underestimate Tyler Perry, said Tom Ortenberg, president of distribution at the Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.-owned studio.BOOST CROSSOVER APPEALGoing into the weekend, various forecasters had predicted a tight race for the lead, with the leading contenders likely to be bunched in the low- to mid-teen millions.Ortenberg said Perry's movies, which incorporate themes of family and personal redemption, speak to a nontraditional moviegoing audience that does not show up in pre-release studies. We aren't the least bit surprised by the opening, he said.As is the case with Perry movies, the audience was heavily black -- about 90 percent -- and 65 percent of moviegoers were female, Ortenberg said. The studio has been trying to boost his crossover appeal to white audiences with an eye on the exponential boost to box office sales. Ortenberg said Perry's DVDs sell well across the demographics.As for the other new entries, Warner Bros. had thought it might have a solid shot at winning the weekend with Michael Clayton, in which Clooney plays the titular hero. In the end, the Time Warner Inc.-owned studio said it was happy with the $11 million opening, hoping that review-sensitive older moviegoers would underpin business in the coming weeks.Critics were less enthused about Columbia Pictures' We Own the Night, which stars Phoenix and Wahlberg as brothers battling with Soviet-era drug kingpins. Its $11 million opening was termed solid by the Sony Corp.-owned studio.Universal said it was disappointed with the $6.2 million opening for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which Blanchett reunites with fellow Australian Geoffrey Rush and director Shekhar Kapur for a follow-up to 1998's Elizabeth. Critics were also underwhelmed. Universal is a unit of General Electric Co's NBC Universal Inc.Elsewhere, Walt Disney Co's The Game Plan has earned $59.5 million after three weekends. A week after its disappointing debut, the Ben Stiller comedy The Heartbreak Kid slipped three places to No. 5 with $7.4 million; the 10-day total stands at $26 million. The film was released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures, both units of Viacom Inc.

Random House, the world's biggest book publisher, is considering joining a book-search project run by Google, once considered an arch-enemy by the paper publishing industry.

For Real Networks' Rhapsody digital music service, there's no place like home. The company has teamed with TiVo to bring subscription-based on-demand streaming music into the living room directly from Internet-connected TiVo digital video recorders.

Companies will spend a record $31 billion this year to advertise everything from toothpaste to home loans on the Internet, supporting countless news sites, social networks, video exchanges and blogs.

World stocks hovered slightly off their record highs on Monday and the dollar firmed as investors gained confidence in the health of the U.S. economy and paid little heed to oil prices near $84 a barrel.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Monday an appeal by Microsoft Corp and Best Buy Co Inc of a ruling that reinstated a lawsuit by the electronics retailer's customers who claimed to have been improperly charged for Microsoft's MSN Internet service.

Workers are painting, patching stucco and peeling protective plastic from gleaming panes of balcony glass at a new 1,000-unit condo called The Plaza, two towers that rise 43 and 56 stories over Miami's bank district.

Chinese President Hu Jintao offered on Monday to enter into negotiations with Taiwan to reach a peace agreement in an overture to the self-ruled island which China claims as its own.

The economists won the prize for laying the foundations of an economic theory that determines when markets are working effectively.

Mattel Inc, the world's largest toy company, posted a lower quarterly profit on Monday, missing Wall Street estimates, on charges stemming from its recent global recalls of potentially harmful toys.

Oil zoomed to a new record high above $85 a barrel on Monday as a robust demand picture amid booming commodity markets and fresh geopolitical worries put tight oil supplies into sharp focus.

Nintendo Co Ltd surpassed 10 trillion yen ($85 billion) in market value on Monday, joining Toyota Motor Corp and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group as one of the bluest of Japanese blue-chip stocks.

Citigroup Inc, the largest U.S. bank, said on Monday third-quarter profit fell 57 percent, hurt by losses from subprime and leveraged loans, fixed-income trading and its U.S. consumer business.

China's biggest e-commerce firm, Alibaba.com Ltd, plans to raise as much as US$1.32 billion after setting a price range for its Hong Kong initial public offering, sources familiar with the deal said on Monday.

Asian stocks pared early gains on Monday, pausing after their recent rally, while the dollar held firm as strong U.S. retail sales data prompted investors to trim bets of further U.S. interest rate cut.

Major banks including Citigroup Inc are looking at setting up a roughly $80 billion fund to buy ailing mortgage securities and other assets, in a bid to prevent the credit crunch from further hurting the global economy, sources familiar with the matter said.

This Friday in the UK, troubled bank Northern Rock was offered a lifeline by a consortium assembled and led by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. The group submitted a plan which would involve “a substantial cash sum… [being] injected” in a bid to save the bank, according to published reports.

Japanese Carmakers intend to export their hybrid models to emerging countries like India and China, anticipating these countries’ growing appetite for environmentally friend models, especially among the wealthy.

PetroChina has discovered another major gas field in western Xinjiang, which has an initial estimated daily output capacity of 286,000 cubic meters., and boasts an estimated reserve of as much as 130 billion cubic meters, the company's Tarim unit confirmed Wednesday.

The race to generate greater returns is luring hedge funds into untraditional areas

Despite the credit crunch, firms in Germany still have ample financing

Business software maker BEA Systems Inc rejected a $6.7 billion takeover bid from Oracle Corp on Friday, throwing the company into play by saying the unsolicited offer was too low. Shares rose 38 percent, above a five-year high.

When you have huge sums of money to spend, staying at a Ritz-Carlton is far from enough.

McDonald's Corp on Friday forecast third-quarter earnings above Wall Street analysts' average estimate as September same-store sales rose 5.9 percent on strength in Asia. McDonald's has outperformed many other restaurant chains and retailers this year, with successful new products and extended restaurant hours.