MEXICO

Oil surged to near an all-time record over $78 a barrel on Monday as OPEC prepared to meet on output policy and after attacks on crude and natural gas pipelines in U.S. supplier Mexico.

The Bush administration granted authority late on Thursday for long haul Mexican trucks to operate anywhere in the United States, launching a one-year pilot program that some members of Congress, labor and consumer groups assert shortchanges safety.

Hurricane Dean is expected to cost Munich Re less than 100 million euros ($136 million), the reinsurer said on Wednesday, adding that it was sticking to its 2007 earnings forecast.

Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua and Honduras on Tuesday as a potentially catastrophic Category 5 storm, lashing remote coastal villages with violent winds and torrential rains.

Oil held above $74 on Tuesday, as investors tracked a potentially catastrophic hurricane threatening Central America and OPEC stuck to supply curbs ahead of its meeting next week.

U.S. Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas producers were monitoring powerful Hurricane Felix as it churned through the Caribbean Sea on Sunday, but none had reported reduced offshore production or evacuated workers to onshore locations.

L'Oreal said on Friday it was confident on the outlook for 2007, despite signs of a slowdown in the United States, thanks to booming demand in new markets and the launch of new brands like Sanoflore and Diesel.

Mexico's economy, hobbled in recent months by a U.S. slowdown and less demand for exports, expanded 2.5 percent in June from the same month last year, modestly less than analysts had forecast in a Reuters poll.

Oil drifted below $70 a barrel on Friday after Mexico's Gulf oil rigs suffered only minor damage from Hurricane Dean and in response to fears of a U.S. economic slowdown.

Oil fell on Wednesday after a government report showed U.S. crude inventories rose unexpectedly last week, easing supply concerns.

Nestle SA, the world's largest food company, expects U.S. volume growth of its bottled water brands to improve in the next few months as comparisons with last year become easier, an executive said on Tuesday.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour returned to its Florida home port on Tuesday, touching down safely at the Kennedy Space Center following a hectic but successful 13-day mission to the International Space Station.

Oil tumbled nearly $2 a barrel below $70 on Tuesday as Hurricane Dean lost strength, easing concerns of supply disruptions from Mexico and the U.S. Gulf where oil installations were threatened by the powerful storm.

Hurricane Dean slammed into Mexico's Caribbean coast on Tuesday, flooding streets, blowing the roofs off houses and battering resorts where tens of thousands of tourists and residents huddled in shelters.

U.S. casino operator Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc. has made diversifying beyond Atlantic City, New Jersey, a priority and is closing in on its first deal, its chief executive said on Monday.

Plants that can be grown for fuel are often touted as a vast, clean energy source -- except by those who say precious food is being diverted into gas tanks, and that biofuel crops are using up dwindling land and water.

Oil jumped $1 a barrel on Friday after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut its discount rate by 50 basis points to restore order in financial markets that have been hammered by credit worries.

Mexican consumer prices jumped 0.42 percent in July, accelerating from June and pushing 12-month inflation above the 4-percent limit the central bank says is acceptable.

A lower percentage of Latin American workers living in the United States is sending money to family members back home, a report showed on Wednesday.

Emerging economies will edge past the developed countries in terms of economic growth by 2050, the Ernst and Young European Attractiveness Survey 2007 has revealed.

Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim has overtaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the world's wealthiest man with riches of $59 billion, Fortune magazine said on Monday.