BUSINESS

Starbucks Corp , the world's largest coffee company, is finalizing its retail partnership with India's Tata Coffee Ltd and hopes to announce the deal by the end of this month, a senior official of the Indian company said on Thursday.

Japanese authorities, while reluctant to act now, may consider engaging in a rare intervention to stem yen rises against the euro if the moves appear to be driven by speculators and sharp enough to severely hurt business sentiment.

Economic reforms in highly indebted Greece are coming along slowly, but the Greeks have made many sacrifices and people must be patient, the head of the European Commission's special task force to help rebuild the Greek economy said on Thursday.

Stock index futures pointed to a lower open on Wall Street on Thursday, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq 100 down 0.03 to 0.2 percent at 1004 GMT.

Global brewer SABMiller reported a 3 percent rise in beer volumes in the last three months of 2011, matching forecasts, led by the emerging markets of Africa and Latin America which helped offset falls in North America and Europe.

China's 2012 economic outlook has dimmed because of weakening export demand and a faltering housing market, and its central bank will probably try to spur more bank lending to prevent a steeper slump, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.

Greece meets its private creditors on Thursday for a second day of bargaining on a crucial bond swap deal, with time running out for reaching a compromise needed to avoid an unruly default.

Large U.S. companies are facing fewer shareholder securities fraud lawsuits than at any other time in the last decade, a trend that may persist as fallout from the 2008 financial crisis recedes.

China is filling a lending vacuum in Asia as European banks limp home to preserve capital, and is making sure loans have spin-off benefits for Chinese manufacturers and exporters, even at the expense of the rates they offer.

Eastman Kodak Co is preparing to name a chief restructuring officer as it looks for ways to raise financing to keep the company in business during bankruptcy proceedings, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Federal authorities announced at a press conference on Wednesday that seven individuals were brought up on insider trading charges as part of a five-year investigation conducted by the Justice Department.

China faces what could be its worst year of growth in a decade with policy firepower that developed nations can only dream of.

Global miner Rio Tinto is clear to take over Mongolia's coveted Oyu Tolgoi project, which promises to be one of the world's largest copper-gold mines, after project owner Ivanhoe Mines decided to scrap a controversial poison pill.

Prosecutors charged a computer programmer with stealing software code valued at nearly $10 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Authorities announced at press conference on Wednesday a major drug bust in Harlem. About 35 members of an alleged drug ring were arrested or indicted in an early morning take-down, including an 8-year-old boy, and are being brought up on drug related charges.

Prosecutors charged a computer programmer with stealing software code valued at nearly $10 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

This afternoon, New York Tech Meetup, a group of roughly 18,000, held an emergency meeting at the doorsteps of New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand in order to protest controversial copyright bills SOPA and PIPA. The demonstration was marked by guest speakers that included founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian and executive vice president of Tumblr Andrew McLaughlin.

Investors' optimism for Google Inc is running high, setting the stage for another jump in its shares to an all-time peak after the Internet search company reports results Thursday.

U.S. prosecutors charged seven people, described as a circle of friends who formed a criminal club, with running a $62 million insider trading scheme - the latest salvo in a years-long probe of suspicious trading at hedge funds.

LightSquared, the telecom start-up backed by hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, called for new tests of its mobile system to examine interference concerns after it accused the latest government tests of being rigged.

U.S. prosecutors charged seven people, described as a circle of friends who formed a criminal club, with running a $62 million insider trading scheme - the latest salvo in a years-long probe of suspicious trading at hedge funds.

The International Monetary Fund is seeking to more than double its war chest by raising $600 billion in new resources to help countries deal with the fallout of the euro zone debt crisis, but the United States and other countries are throwing up roadblocks.

Former football star and actor O.J. Simpson is facing foreclosure.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's fourth-quarter profit fell 56 percent as trading and investment banking revenue plunged, but the bank did better than expected thanks to cost-cutting and lower taxes, sending its shares higher.

Stocks jumped to their highest since July on Wednesday as the International Monetary Fund sought to help countries hit by the European debt crisis, while forecast-beating earnings from Goldman Sachs dispelled some worries over bank profits.

EBay Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly profit as the e-commerce company saw solid growth in its online marketplaces and an increase in transactions processed through its PayPal electronic payments business.

Stocks jumped to their highest since July on Wednesday as the International Monetary Fund sought to help countries hit by the European debt crisis, while forecast-beating earnings from Goldman Sachs dispelled some worries over bank profits.

China is greatly concerned and strongly opposed to the United States' listing of Taobao, the country's largest consumer e-commerce website, as a notorious market for piracy, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.

As Wall Street banks sharply cut costs, many of the industry's star bankers and traders are leaving their shrinking pay packages and firms behind.