NEWS

He was born out of wedlock, stained his reputation with an extra-marital affair and was mortally wounded in a duel.

PepsiCo Inc said company tests of its Tropicana orange juice showed low levels of a potentially dangerous fungicide, but levels were below federal safety concerns and did not pose a health risk.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that key emerging-market nations must let their currencies rise in value in order permit more stable global growth.

Agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Wednesday it will reduce its workforce by 3 percent, making it the latest agribusiness giant to make cuts in the face of volatile global markets.

Starbucks Corp is expanding beyond its dark coffee roots by offering lighter Blonde roasts in cafes and supermarkets as of Tuesday.

Toyota Motor Corp's North American operations are looking to become a big exporter as the automaker gets hit by a strong yen that has eroded profits on vehicles shipped from Japan, a top executive said on Tuesday.

U.S. orange juice futures surged almost 11 percent to an all-time high on Tuesday, after U.S. health regulators announced a clampdown on imports from top producer Brazil following the discovery of small doses of a fungicide that is not approved in the United States.

One of the biggest imbalances in the global economy could soon be a thing of the past: China's super-sized trade surplus is melting away.

China is due to overtake the United States to become the world's biggest oil importer within a year and a half, Goldman Sachs said on Monday.

Volkswagen is itching to combine Porsche SE's sportscar business with its own and is looking at the possibility of using put-call options to achieve that, VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn said.

The roller-coaster ride for Asian currencies, which saw only the yen and yuan post significant gains for the year against the U.S. dollar, is set to continue in 2012.

Agricultural bankers and other players in the world's grain markets say fallout from the collapse of giant broker MF Global is changing cash grain trading and fueling calls for alternatives and reforms.

The Japanese government is considering a dollar swap arrangement with India to provide emergency liquidity in case the European debt crisis reaches emerging economies, the Nikkei business newspaper said on Sunday.

With governments laboring under too much debt and banks hobbled by too little capital, 2012 is shaping up as another year of hard slog for Europe's economy that could yet test the single currency to destruction.

Two weeks after MF Global's collapse, officials from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission briefed Senate staff on the brokerage firm's final days. When asked about reports that the brokerage firm had written checks that bounced when customers tried to cash them, the regulators had an admission that surprised the room: they didn't know about the bad checks.

Political turmoil in the euro zone is undermining the ability of computer-driven trading systems to cope with volatile market sentiment, challenging the rocket scientists who create them to seek new ways to guarantee returns.

Europe's economic prospects next year are so bleak that 2011, for all the euro's agonies, has every chance of being remembered fondly.

Prime Minister David Cameron tried to limit the political damage from an historic break with his European partners, insisting on Monday that remaining a member of the 27-nation EU was in Britain's national interest, despite his veto on a new treaty.

Prime Minister David Cameron can expect a hero's welcome from his Conservative party but faces a backlash from Liberal Democrat allies on Monday when he explains a European Union veto that has cast Britain adrift from its continental partners.

It was billed as a summit to save the euro. It may be remembered as the day Europe lost patience with Britain, as most of the continent threw its lot in with EU founding members France and Germany and committed to binding their economies ever more tightly.

On a recent morning inside a crowded town hall, auctioneer Jeffrey Obrecht sold off a sliver of western Iowa farmland barely wider than a football field.

It was billed as a summit to save the euro. It may be remembered as the day Europe lost patience with Britain, as most of the continent threw its lot in with EU founding members France and Germany and committed to binding their economies ever more tightly.

Pessimistic comments from EU paymaster Germany and new figures exposing deepening stress among Europe's banks dented financial market hopes of a turning point in the euro zone's debt crisis at a summit this week.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner meets French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Wednesday to press for decisive steps towards resolving Europe's deepening debt crisis as the region's leaders prepare for a crucial summit this week.

Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive of Chrysler Group LLC and Fiat SpA, is guardedly optimistic the European Union will take steps this week to help the euro regain its credibility.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner threw his weight on Tuesday behind a Franco-German plan to tackle the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis and said the European Central Bank had to play a major role in any solution.

The Swiss town of Rueschlikon that is home to Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg has cut taxes after a huge windfall following the commodity company's flotation this year.

Nestle will partner with the Fair Labor Association to investigate whether children are working on cocoa farms which supply its factories in Ivory Coast, it said in a statement on Monday.

Campbell Soup Co's efforts to turnaround its U.S. soups business have yet to convince Wall Street as it risks losing price-conscious buyers with fewer promotions and by raising prices due to high ingredient costs.