UNITED STATES

An Iranian military commander has accused German engineering company Siemens of helping the United States and Israel launch a cyber attack on its nuclear facilities, Kayhan daily reported on Sunday.

The death toll has risen to 20 after tornadoes ripped through the US South in the past three days. Widespread damage was reported in south and North Carolinas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.

U.S. Speaker of the House Speaker John Boehner is in Iraq meeting with top Iraqi officials, according to Agence France-Presse.

The United Arab Emirates will stop individuals and small businesses accessing the most private data services offered by BlackBerry, a UAE newspaper said, but the government said no services would be disrupted to any subscribers.

Nearly a decade worth of work to reach a world trade deal is on the verge of failure, World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy said on Saturday in a plea for countries to rise above their own narrow interests for the good of the global economy.

IMF member nations, acknowledging resistance from emerging markets to limits on capital controls, said rich nations' policies that spur large capital outflows that could harm other economies also need oversight.

Developing countries on Saturday pushed back hard against attempts to restrict how they manage money pouring into their fast-growing economies and said rich nations should reconsider their own policies instead.

Mexican magnate Carlos Slim plans to invest about $1.5 billion in Argentina's telecoms sector, a newspaper reported on Saturday, citing the government.

Leading world economies agreed on Friday to put the policies of seven major nations under a microscope as part of a plan to prevent a repeat of the global financial crisis.

Johnson & Johnson is in preliminary talks to acquire Swiss medical device maker Synthes for a price which could be about $20 billion, a source familiar with the situation said on Saturday.

China's monetary policy tightening will continue for some time as inflation remains higher than the government is comfortable with, and the yuan will be one of the tools used to fight it, the central bank governor said on Saturday.

The United Arab Emirates will stop individuals and small businesses accessing the most private data services offered by BlackBerry, a newspaper said, but email and web access will not be disrupted, said the government.

China's monetary policy tightening will continue for some time as inflation remains higher than the government is comfortable with, and the yuan will be one of the tools used to fight it, the central bank governor said on Saturday.

The owners of three of the largest Internet poker companies operating in the United States were accused on Friday of tricking regulators and banks into processing billions of dollars of illegal Internet gambling proceeds.

Europe is likely to be hit the hardest among major economies by a potential global slowdown in 2012, but China's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund is still looking for investment opportunities there, its head said on Saturday.

Sprint Nextel Corp CEO Dan Hesse attacked rival AT&T Inc's planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA on Friday, saying a tie-up between the two would hurt innovation and set the country's wireless industry back.

China's largest social network, Renren, filed for a U.S. initial public offering to raise up to $573.1 million, the first of a clutch of Facebook clones hoping to boost their profile with an American listing.

Nasdaq OMX Group Inc told investors it could sell NYSE Euronext's American Stock Exchange and offer a break-up fee to overcome antitrust concerns in its $11.3 billion bid for the Big Board parent, a source familiar with the situation said on Friday.

A transcript of Obama's speech

China's largest social networking site Renren filed for an initial public offering with U.S. regulators to raise up to $573.1 million.

President Barack Obama signed the law that officially averts a federal shutdown but objected to and vowed to repeal rules attached to it that prevent the use of money to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo Bay or to foreign countries.