Palash Ghosh

European aircraft-manufacturer Airbus lifted its 20-year forecast for airplane demand and passenger traffic, citing an expected boom in China and India, among other factors.

British people in mid-career (those between the ages of 35 and 49) are losing out on new jobs and younger or older workers obtain the bulk of newly-created positions, according to s study from the UK’s The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Paul Myners, the former Financial Services Secretary during the Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has called for the break-up of UK partly-nationalized banking giants Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE: LYG) and Royal Bank of Scotland (NYSE: RBS).

Singapore's top government officials spewed venom towards the political leaders of some of its Asian neighbors, according to U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and provided to an Australian newspaper, The Sun Herald.

Stocks drifted higher, with the S&P 500 approaching a two-year high, as traders seemed pleased with a narrowing trade deficit and higher consumer confidence, ahead of an expected extension of Bush-era tax cuts by the federal government.

An Irish delegation led by former prime minister John Bruton has travelled to the Middle East, gauging the interest of Arab investors, including sovereign wealth funds, in buying some troubled Irish banks, as the Dublin government seeks foreign investors for financial investment.

The federal budget deficit widened to $150.4-billion in November, the highest such figure ever recorded for the month, and up about 20 percent from the $120.3-billion deficit in November 2009, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

The potential expiration of the Build America Bond (BAB) program at the end of this year may have a negative near-term impact on the prices of the overall municipal bond market.

U.S. drug giant Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) hired investigators to dig up dirt on Nigeria’s former attorney general in order to stop an investigation over a controversial drug trial the company conducted which led to the deaths of eleven children, according to cables released by WikiLeaks.

European bankers will be subject to limits on bonus payments they receive starting next year. Meanwhile, in Ireland, politicians are seeking to impose a 90 percent “super-tax” on bank bonuses

Stocks finished narrowly mixed in lethargic trading as an early jump on a benign jobless claims data faded away on a stronger U.S. dollar and later on news that Democrats in the House voted against considering the tax cut extensions that President Obama negotiated with Republicans.

While it may make some strategic sense for Yahoo and AOL to combine some of their operations, she sees little hope for the resulting merged entity to mount a challenge against the reigning monarch of the search-engine market, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

German pharmaceuticals and chemical giant Bayer AG said it plans to invest 1-billion euros ($1.3-billion) in China in efforts to more than double sales in the country by 2015, as part of the company’s greater push into the Asia-Pacific region.

Having just touched an all-time high in price, demand for copper is expected to be very strong in the coming years, driven primarily by China’s insatiable hunger for commodities of all kinds to support its relentless program of mass urbanization.

Iceland has entered into an agreement to repay losses incurred by the U.K. and Netherlands governments in connection with the collapse of the Icesave bank in 2008, according to the Dutch government.

The value of U.S. homes is expected to decline by more than $1.7 trillion during 2010, following a drop of more than $1 trillion in 2009, according to data from Zillow Real Estate Market Reports. Since the market peak of June 2006, U.S. housing has lost $9-trillion in value.

Stocks crept higher in a choppy trading session as traders likely had more time to digest the implications of the extension of George W. Bush’s tax cuts for two years, as well as a renewal of unemployment insurance for long-term jobless for thirteen months.

In a conference on Wednesday in mid-town Manhattan, The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) presented reasons why South Korea makes for an attractive investment candidate for foreigners.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is defending the beleaguered Bank of England (BoE) governor Mervyn King, who has come under fire in recent weeks for allegedly having a lack of political neutrality.

A war is now raging in Europe. On one side are the forces of the corporate state led by Germany and France; on the other are the forces of free-market capitalism led by Britain.

Longer-term, the potential impact of the tax cuts upon the stock market and economy remain rather fuzzy, given the multitude of other issues facing investors, including perpetually high unemployment in the U.S., a seemingly never-ending sovereign debt crisis in Europe and constant friction with China over trade and currency.

A moderate stock rally fueled by a compromise between President Obama and Republicans on tax extensions and unemployment benefits petered out in late-session trading, resulting in a narrowly mixed results for major equity indices.

On an interview today with CNBC, famed investor and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers said some European countries should be allowed to go bankrupt so that they can restructure their debt without hurting other parties.

The number of job openings in the U.S. climbed to 3.4-million at the end of October, up from 3-million in the prior month, according to data from the Labor Department.

The Irish government has presented what is likely the toughest austerity budget in its history, comprising spending cuts of 6-billion euros ($8-billion) and an increase in taxes, in addition to other measures already outlines last month in the so-called “National Recovery Plan.”

The euro currency might not survive the current sovereign debt crisis and may be in danger of collapse, according to Stephen Nickell, an economist at the independent Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) member and former Bank of England member.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said it plans a public offering of its remaining 2.4 billion shares of Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) common stock.

Stocks, which fell early in the session on some gloomy remarks on the economy from Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, pared much of their losses later in the day on hopes that The Republicans and Democrats in Congress can hammer out a compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts as well as unemployment benefits.

While Europe (and much of the developed world) continues to reel from high unemployment in the wake of the global economic recession, at least one small, peaceful corner of the continent continues to enjoy very low jobless rates.