IBT Staff Reporter

Last week's EU summit went a long way towards forging the closer economic ties needed to prevent future debt crises but markets are likely to judge it as too little and too late to solve the current one.

Facebook, the social networking site, is probably not the first place that comes to mind when contemplating new career opportunities.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a weaker open for equities on Wall Street on Monday, with futures for the S&P 500, for the Dow Jones and for the Nasdaq 100 down 0.8 to 1 percent.

India's industrial output fell in October for the first time in more than two years as capital goods investment slumped, ramping up pressure on the central bank to ease monetary or liquidity conditions, possibly as soon as Friday.

Hackers are bombarding the world's computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption.

The whistleblower in Japan's Olympus Corp scandal, former chief executive Michael Woodford, plans to meet ruling-party lawmakers in Tokyo this week as he lobbies for reforms to Japanese boardrooms, a source said on Monday.

Olympus Corp's ousted CEO, Michael Woodford, will on Thursday meet a panel of lawmakers from Japan's ruling Democratic Party looking at ways to tighten corporate governance in the wake of the accounting scandal at the endoscope maker, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters.

Olympus said it was preparing to file its July-September earnings by Wednesday, a necessary step for the disgraced 92-year-old firm to remain listed.

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.

At least a dozen U.S.-listed companies have been told by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose business activity in and with Syria, Iran and others deemed state sponsors of terror by the state department, the Financial Times said on Sunday.

At least a dozen U.S.-listed companies have been told by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose business activity in and with Syria, Iran and others deemed state sponsors of terror by the state department, the Financial Times said on Sunday.

An OECD report due for release this month will say markets and governments face an uphill struggle to fund themselves next year amid extreme uncertainty over the euro zone and the global economy, the Financial Times said on Monday.

Zhang Yimou, one of China's best-known directors, is banking on heartthrob Christian Bale to help boost the country's chances of winning an Oscar, with his latest film on a tragic chapter in the nation's history.

Contents of the mansion where Michael Jackson's lifeless body was found by convicted killer Dr. Conrad Murray go under the auction hammer next week, closing one chapter on a tragic saga that started in 2009 and ended last month with his former physician behind bars.

Alec Baldwin dropped in on Saturday Night Live this weekend for a skit mocking the airline industry, issuing a fake apology from a pilot who kicked him off an American Airlines flight for playing a smart-phone game before departure.

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced Friday night that it had reached a tentative agreement with the Big Four broadcast networks on a new network TV code deal.

Olympus said on Monday it was preparing to file its July-September earnings by December 14, a necessary step for the disgraced 92-year-old firm to remain listed.

An early New Year's Eve led the weekend box office charts as movie audiences turned to the holiday romance over new comedy The Sitter.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association, which took a typically idiosyncratic path with its 2011 awards, has named Alexander Payne's The Descendants the best film of the year.

The Artist, a black-and-white silent film about Hollywood, drama The Descendants, Brad Pitt, Martin Scorsese and Terrence Malick all won big on Sunday among U.S. film critics and industry groups that doled out honors for the year's best movies.

Undercover police officers infiltrated Occupy LA's tent city last month to spy on people they suspected of stockpiling human waste and crude weapons for resisting an eventual eviction, police and city government sources said.

Romantic comedy New Year's Eve topped the domestic movie box office during the weekend but Hollywood had little to celebrate as North American ticket sales slumped to their lowest level in three years.

A former Death Row Records vice president, John Atterberry, remains in critical condition at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, one of several victims caught Friday in a Hollywood street rampage conducted by a distraught 26-year-old gunman.

Canada posted an unexpected trade deficit in October, reflecting economic problems in the United States and Europe and paving the way for lower growth in the fourth quarter, Statistics Canada data indicated on Friday.

Germany's largest utility E.On has recruited Goldman Sachs to run a sale of its gas distribution network in a move that could raise up to 2.5 billion euros to help pay down its debts, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Whitehaven Coal has agreed to take over Aston Resources and another miner in a $3 billion deal to create Australia's biggest independent coal miner, looking for scale as it taps into booming Asian coal demand.

An agreement reached by European countries for deeper economic integration was a step in the right direction but not a complete solution for the euro zone's debt crisis, International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard said on Sunday.

Shares of TripAdvisor, the largest Internet travel site, will likely trade well after the business is spun off from Expedia, Barron's financial newspaper said in its Dec 12 edition.

The defense budget is shrinking, but General Dynamics Corp still sees growing demand for its combat vehicles and warships, coupled with unprecedented opportunities to sell its popular Gulfstream business jets in China and other emerging markets.