BUSINESS

ICICI Bank, India's top private lender, Friday reported a 36 percent increase in its net profit in the first quarter of the financial year 2012, exceeding the market expectations.

De Klerk reserved particular venom for current ANC leader, President Jacob Zuma, who spoke of the “white control” of South Africa’s economy during a June policy speech.

The second-quarter earnings season is in full swing and investors will hear next week from several more major players, including AIG, Kellogg, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Pfizer, Mastercard and General Motors.

Asian stock markets rallied Friday as comments from European Central Bank (ECB) president raised hopes for further central bank action in Europe to alleviate the sovereign debt crisis.

U.S. stock index futures point to a higher opening Friday following expectation among investors that central banks around the world will announce stimulus measures to regain the economic growth momentum.

Most European markets rose Friday amid hopes of stimulus measures to boost the economy after the European Central Bank promised to take steps to protect the euro.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, reported a second quarter net income of 5.19 trillion won ($4.4 billion), up from 3.51 trillion won in the same period earlier year, aided by sales of Galaxy smartphones.

Japan’s retail sales growth slowed down in June as compared to May, indicating that private consumption being affected by the faltering global economic conditions.

Asian markets rose Friday as investor sentiment turned positive following the promise from European Central Bank to take necessary steps to save the euro zone from collapsing.

The top after-market NYSE gainers Thursday were Netsuite Inc, Rentech Nitrogen Partners, Foot Locker, Cash America International and ENSCO plc. The top after-market NYSE losers were Green Dot Corp, Fortune Brands Home & Security, Superior Energy Services, Newmont Mining Corp and Renren Inc.

As the world converges on London for the 2012 Summer Olympics, here's a look at five lesser-known Olympic hosts.

While there's no way to verify supposed iPhone 5 photos yet, photos of prototype iPhones from 2006 came to light Thursday, and they're just as interesting. Oddly enough, one of the designs resembles a less refined iPhone 4, with another looking a lot like a bigger iPod mini (remember those?).

During a keynote ceremony today Google officially announced its latest venture: Google Fiber. This move puts the search-engine giant among the likes of companies such as Verizon and Comcast as it rolls out its first service provider service.

Gizmodo reported that an Easter Egg was found in the Mac App Store in OS X Mountain Lion. To see an Easter egg for yourself, every time you download an App from the Mac App Store, check the applications folder and look at the time stamp on the downloading application. It will say January 24 1984 which is Macintosh's birth date.

Gold futures steadied over $1,600 per ounce Thursday, breaking above a level the precious metal had not seen since early July.

The idea that a few-hour Twitter outage could have more than a billion-dollar effect on the economy sounds preposterous at first, but some simple math suggests that might be just the case.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (NYSE: HOT), which operates the Sheraton, Westin and W hotel brands, is moving ahead with its expansion in China, even as the world's second-largest economy suffers a recent slowdown in growth.

Nintendo is expected to push out between four and five million Wii U units during the gaming console’s launch period, ComputerAndVideoGames.com has reported.

Las Vegas cops say Ronald Hetzel, 41, attacked his victim first with a wooden guitar and then with a porcelain toilet bowl lid.

USA Today's Eileen Blass scored an interview with eight-time Olympic medal-winning speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno, and the company wanted to promote the exclusive story on the front page of the sports section. There's nothing wrong with that; the way USA Today went about it, however, was highly questionable.

Facebook Inc (NYSE: FB), the world's largest social networking platform, on Thursday issued its first quarterly report, disclosing results that slightly beat analyst expectations.

The latest figures on U.K. GDP, released this week, were so demoralizingly bad that some economists and market-watchers are simply refusing to believe them, suggesting they are the result of a statistical anomaly and will be subject to large upward revisions soon.

As analysts began to eagerly predict Facebook earnings--its first as a public company--the social media giant's close ally Zynga posted dramatic losses, leading many to question the future the two tech companies may have together.

The Jerry Sandusky shower incident has resurfaced in the headlines as the man claiming to be the victim of the sexual assault has come forward and identified himself to attorneys.

U.S. President Barack Obama says he believes most gun owners would want guns out of the hands of those who want to do harm, thus background checks and other means to safe gun sales shouldn't be a controversial issue.

Speaking at an earnings call with analysts, Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, had some pretty grim words to say about what ails the storied magazine and print media as a whole.

A remora is a fish that sticks to the side of a shark. Inventor of FarmVille is the remora in this analogy.

Du Toit will be sentenced at a later date.

Former University of Illinois football player Steven Feagin was sentenced to 90 years in prison Wednesday for the 1995 rape of a 22-year-old student in Urbana, Ill., near the university's campus.