IBT Staff Reporter

The latest failure by CSN to take control of Cimpor threw the focus of the battle for the Portuguese cement maker on to the rival Brazilian companies that thwarted CSN.

U.S. stock index futures dropped on Tuesday after an unexpected fall in German business confidence rattled markets, as investors braced for reports on housing and consumer sentiment in the United States.

American International Group's stalled $2.2 billion sale of its Taiwan unit to a group led by China Strategic faces a new hurdle.

China's Tengzhong could use an offshore vehicle to buy General Motors' Hummer brand if it fails to win Chinese regulatory approval.

U.S. technology giant Intel Corp is planning to set up a $2 billion fund to invest in U.S. companies, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Japanese unit of Wal-Mart Stores said on Tuesday that it would actively seek opportunities for mergers and acquisitions as a way to grow.

Digital dumping is on the rise, according to a survey, with growing numbers of people preferring to use email and social networking Web sites to break up with their partners.

Torrential rains in large parts of Uganda should boost this season's coffee output, a senior official with a farmers' organization said on Tuesday.

Home Depot Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly results as it benefited from its efforts to improve efficiency, prompting the top home improvement chain to forecast a fiscal-year profit above Wall Street estimates.

Following up on Monday's National Margarita Day, today is another national holiday. It's National Pancake Day, and to celebrate, the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) is offering free pancakes to all.

While we continue to be interested in analyses of ways of reducing tobacco use, we will no longer be considering papers where support, in whole or in part, for the study or the researchers come from a tobacco company, the PLoS Medicine (Public Library of Science) said in an editorial.

Kuwaiti telecoms firm Zain, which is selling its African assets to India's Bharti Airtel, will concentrate on the Gulf and Middle East region and is open to new investments, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

Macy's Inc posted better-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday and forecast same-store sales growth this year of 1 percent to 2 percent.

U.S. home prices probably stagnated in December, with the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index showing no change after a 0.2 percent November decline and a total average price plunge of about 30 percent from 2006 peaks.

The euro turned lower against the dollar on Tuesday after a weak German survey raised concerns about the outlook for the euro zone economy. Early demand for euros fizzled after data showed Germany's Ifo business sentiment index unexpectedly fell this month, while Italian confidence data and consumer spending numbers from France were also below forecast.

As the saying goes, money isn't everything, but it certainly means more to people now than before the global financial crisis, and especially in China, Japan and South Korea.

Roche had indicated peak sales of the drug for the disease could have hit between 500 million and 1 billion Swiss francs ($466-$933 million), according to Deutsche Bank analysts.

Newport Beach, California has been rated the top wealth center among U.S. communities in a new listing by the business news website Portfolio.com.

A top Toyota Motor Corp U.S. executive promised a quality shake-up on Tuesday as the Obama administration said it would hold the carmaker's head to a pledge to address safety issues after massive recalls.

BYD Co Ltd, a Chinese car and battery maker founded by China's wealthiest man and backed by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, aims to boost its car exports this year as it feeds what it hopes will be improving demand in a recovering global economy.

The report by the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences, urges the CDC to promote policies that make it easier for people to be more physically active, cut calories and reduce their salt intake.

U.S. stock index futures dropped on Tuesday as a key index of German business sentiment fell unexpectedly, denting confidence in a global economic recovery and weighing on European shares.

Sterling fell broadly on Tuesday, as Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said risks to the bank's central view of a gradual recovery remained to the downside and further quantitative easing may be needed.

A modest job-creation bill advanced in the Senate on Monday as the chamber's newest Republican bucked his party and sided with Democrats on a $15 billion package of tax cuts and highway spending.

Fury over Greece using derivatives that masked its debt conveniently ignores the fact that euro zone countries and EU bookkeepers have approved other deals worth billions of euros for over 10 years.

Toyota Motor Corp's woes deepened ahead of its testimony to Congress as it revealed it faces a U.S. criminal probe into the handling of its massive safety recalls, while Japan voiced concern over the economic impact of the automakers' problems.

Commerzbank said it expected 2010 to be a difficult year after posting a worse-than-expected fourth-quarter loss, hit by weak trading results and higher loan loss provisions.

Iran seized a Sunni Muslim rebel leader on Tuesday behind a bombing which killed dozens of people last year, and who Tehran says has links to al Qaeda and support from Pakistan, Britain and the United States.

A U.S. Navy warship prevented an attack on a Tanzanian ship and apprehended eight suspected pirates in the process, the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said on Tuesday.