Record gold prices have scared buyers in many parts of the world and left them to watch helplessly the blistering rally that shows no signs of abating.
Amazon.com said Thursday it will buy Audible, a digital audio books provider, for $11.50 a share as in move to expand the online retailer's audio downloads available to users.
The United States, Sweden and Japan topped a new ranking that measures how well countries use telecommunications technologies - networks, cell phones and computers - to boost their social and economic prosperity.
European and Asian stock markets fell on Monday as worries continue about a possible U.S. recession that could affect other leading markets. Asia's losses were led by China's Shanghai composite Index which plummeted to close down more than 7 percent, while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was off 2 percent in early afternoon trading. U.S. stocks were set to open lower.
India's Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd posted an unexpected net loss for the December quarter as it wrote off $60 million of costs for its underperforming German unit and saw revenues decline.
European shares slipped 1.5 percent by midday on Wednesday as the afterglow of a hefty U.S. rate cut faded rapidly, replaced by concerns over bank writedowns and earnings downgrades.
Services and software companies IBM (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and SAP (SAPG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), longtime technology partners, will bring out their first joint software product in the fourth quarter of this year, the two companies said on Monday.
German unions on Thursday called for a consumer boycott of Nokia products to protest against the cellphone maker's plans to close a German plant. Nokia, the world's top cellphone maker, said on Tuesday it wants to move production to lower-cost regions and said the plant, in the western city of Bochum, is not competitive enough. The company has said it may cut up to 2,300 staff.
Finnish Telecom company Nokia announced on Monday that it will be closing down its manufacture of mobile devices in Bochum, Germany closing its site there by the middle of 2008. The company said it plans to move the manufacturing to other, more cost competitive sites in Europe.
Gold surged to a historic high above $910 an ounce, as investors rushed to buy the metal on further weakness in the dollar and expectations of a sharp cut in U.S. interest rates.
The dollar gained versus the euro on Wednesday on lower economic indicators in Germany and comments by St. Louis Federal Reserve President William Poole that it is too soon to tell if housing woes will trigger an economic recession.
Microsoft will not launch a product that competes directly with Apple's iPhone, Chairman Bill Gates said in an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No, we won't do that. In the so-called smart phone business we will concentrate solely on software with our Windows Mobile program, Gates was quoted as saying in the interview published on Wednesday.
Apple will soon announce steps to resolve European Commission charges that its iTunes stores broke EU rules by setting prices country by country in Europe, people familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. The announcement may come later on Tuesday or at the latest by Thursday, the sources said.
Stocks looked set to open lower on Wednesday, with the focus on economic data for clues about the outlook for growth and the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy move. Worries about the still escalating U.S. housing crisis and its implications for the overall economy point to a subdued start to the new year, Germany's Postbank said in a daily note.
Toshiba Corp said on Tuesday it would join a group led by International Business Machines Corp to develop system chips using 32-nanometre circuitry, as chip makers increasingly team up to cut development costs.
European stocks on Monday recorded a sharp decline and closed at their lowest in three weeks amid concerns of inflation effects on global markets and expectations of further rate cuts in the United States.
Asian share markets, already ragged after five months of turmoil, fell deeper on Monday as rising U.S. inflation and high oil prices fanned concerns the Federal Reserve may be unable to make deeper rate cuts to prevent a possible recession.
A U.S. recession could ironically boost the dollar against the euro
Europe toned down a clash with the United States over 2020 climate goals on the final day of U.N. talks in Bali on Friday, raising hopes of a deal to start negotiations on a new global warming treaty.
Germany’s Lufthansa said on Thursday that it will buy a 19 percent stake in the low-cost U.S airline, Jet Blue, in a deal worth nearly $300 million.
The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was an accident waiting to happen as a period of unprecedented global growth seduced investors into underpricing risk, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan argued in an article published by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Air France-KLM said it would make an offer for loss-making Italian carrier Alitalia, a long-awaited move that faces a serious challenge only from tiny Italian airline Air One.
