IBT Staff Reporter

SYDNEY, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar and the yen were firm on Monday while currencies leveraged to global growth like the Australian dollar ran into a bout of profit-taking after an impressive run up since the start of the new year. The euro EUR= stayed under pressure, dragged down by concerns about fiscal problems buffeting Greece. The country's budget deficit has ballooned and its credit ratings have been cut, a factor that has been weighing down on the euro in the past few months [ID:nL...

Some banking analysts are bullish on U.S. regional banks as they expect fourth-quarter results to bring improved earnings per share and capital-ratio visibility, Barron's reported on Sunday.

Brazil's Camargo Correa Group reiterated its interest in cement maker Cimpor on Sunday and said it was pondering its options after the Portuguese stock market regulator turned down its merger proposal.

Google Inc enters a second week of high stakes brinkmanship with China's government, amid speculation the firm has decided to pull out of the world's biggest Internet market over cyber-spying concerns.

The Aussie dollar fell below the 93 cent handle in Asia on Friday to enter offshore trade around 0.9275 ahead of key European and U.S economic data releases.

Michael Widenius, the creator of the MySQL database, said he is turning his vocal campaign against Oracle's planned takeover of Sun Microsystems to China and Russia because the European Commission appears set to clear the deal.

Dutch sports car maker Spyker denied on Sunday it had plans to jointly bid for General Motors' Saab with Luxembourg investment firm Genii Capital.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank actively worked with bailed out insurer AIG to build a case against disclosing details of AIG's payments to banks just days after the insurer considered making them public, documents released late on Saturday showed.

International regulators will present plans in July on how major banks can be wound down in an orderly way as an alternative to a state bailout or going bust, the Swiss central bank head was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Pope Benedict made his first visit to Rome's synagogue on Sunday, which he hopes will be a milestone in Catholic-Jewish relations despite Jewish anger over his decision to move a wartime predecessor nearer to sainthood.

The Afghan parliament prolonged months of political uncertainty on Sunday by shutting for its winter recess without waiting for President Hamid Karzai to fill nearly half of his cabinet.

An Iraqi court sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majeed, the Saddam Hussein henchman widely known as Chemical Ali, on Sunday to death by hanging for a 1988 gas attack that killed about 5,000 Kurds, a court official said.

World leaders pledged aid to rebuild a devastated Haiti, but on the streets of its wrecked capital earthquake survivors were still waiting on Sunday for the basics: food, water and medicine.

Major powers will only achieve results in their meetings on Iran if they adopt a realistic approach and recognize its nuclear rights, the Islamic Republic's Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Members of the U.S. Congress begin 2010 scrambling to reduce the double-digit U.S. jobless rate, knowing their own jobs will be at stake in the November election if they fail to deliver.

In 2010, iron ore prices in India are set to soar by around 15-20%. This is apart from the rise Indian witnessed in Dec 2009 when the iron ore prices jumped by around 30 per cent. While the prices of iron ore with more than 64% ferrous content have already gone up from around $59-61 per tonne to $117 (free on board) per tonne, prices are expected to climb further by 15-20% in 2010.

Barring sugar, all other agri commodities have turned bearish since the beginning of the new year, providing much needed relief to consumers and policy makers. Prices of agricultural commodities have declined by up to 11 per cent since January 1 which analysts attribute to a downward turn in the global markets. Also, fresh arrivals, including pulses, have provided relief to the government.

Following the arrest of 21 diamond traders from India, mainly from Surat, the Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) is mulling to pull out of the diamond cutting and polishing business in China. China had nabbed 21 Indian diamond merchants for alleged smuggling of diamonds from Hong Kong to China. External affairs ministry officials said the ministry will help the traders legally.

Nokia said it would defend itself vigorously against Apple's new complaint to the United States International Trade Commission.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a prominent Saudi investor in Citigroup , on Sunday re-affirmed his support for the bank's chief executive, Vikram Pandit, who he has said faces a make-or-break year.

Mazda Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co will dissolve their joint venture in China by 2012, a move that would further weaken the tie between the two automakers, Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Sunday.

Yahoo got pulled into a growing row between China and Google on Saturday, as its Chinese partner slammed Yahoo's statements supporting Google while a source revealed the search giant had stayed silent about cyber-attacks.

The top executive of Citadel Investment Group's investment banking unit has left the firm, a company spokeswoman confirmed on Saturday.

Jamie Salter, chief executive of private equity firm Hilco Consumer Capital, is resigning from the company, Hilco said in a news release.

President Nicolas Sarkozy grilled top managers of carmaker Renault on Saturday but failed to win pledges from them to center production of their new small car at a factory in France rather than in Turkey.

Haiti's Government alone has gathered 20,000 bodies not counting those collected by international organizations or relatives themselves, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told The Associated Press.

Brazil's Camargo Correa Group must present a counterbid to take over cement maker Cimpor or withdraw its merger proposal, Portugal's stock market regulator told the company on Saturday.

Three al Qaeda militants were captured in Yemen early on Saturday, close to the Saudi Arabian border, a Yemeni security official said.

The lawyer of a French teaching assistant who was arrested on spying charges after Iran's disputed June election said he was hopeful she would be acquitted after a court held its last trial session on Saturday.