IBT Staff Reporter

The United Nations put off taking action Friday on a U.N. report that accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes in Gaza, after U.S. pressure aimed at getting the peace process back on track.

U.S. stocks traded slightly lower on Friday, rebounding from early losses, as gains in technology and financial shares helped offset some of the losses brought on by weak monthly employment figures.

U.S. TV talk-show host David Letterman said on Thursday he was the victim of a $2 million extortion plot by a man who threatened to write a screenplay about Letterman having affairs with employees.

David Letterman shocked viewers Thursday night on his CBS Corporation television show with his candid story of getting being blackmailed by network employee,Robert J. Halderman, for $2 million to expose Letterman's affairs with employees.

The head of the main U.S. securities industry regulator said on Friday the board of Bank of America Corp should make public its intentions as it searches for a new chief executive.

The United States hailed the resignation of Kenya's anti-corruption chief and said on Friday it could help drive badly needed reforms after post-election violence last year that rocked east Africa's biggest economy.

Merck KGaA is sticking to its initial target to make more than 1 billion euros ($1.45 billion) in sales from its Erbitux cancer drug as early as 2011, its chief executive told a German weekly.

Dutch maker of photocopier and printing systems Oce NV posted a third-quarter loss and sharply declining revenues due to weak European markets, but said it saw early signs of bottoming out in some U.S. markets.

In a blow to President Barack Obama, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to prohibit his administration from transferring terrorism suspects from the Guantanamo Bay military prison to face prosecution in the United States

The United States wants to give Japan's new government time to review a contentious agreement on rejigging U.S. troops in the country, but thinks an existing deal is the best solution, U.S. ambassador John Roos said on Friday.

Suncor Energy Incsaid on Friday it has revived plans for a C$120 million ($111 million) expansion of its Sarnia, Ontario, ethanol plant in another sign the chill in energy investments is easing.

David Letterman shocked viewers Thursday night on his CBS Corporation television show with his candid story of getting extorted by an employee of the network who threatened to reveal the host's affairs with women working on his show.

Oil fell to near $70 a barrel on Friday after worse-than-expected U.S. employment figures raised doubts about the strength of the economic recovery, but a slump in the dollar helped drag crude prices off their lows.

Gun shots ring sharply across a valley littered with rusting hulks of Soviet tanks as Afghan soldiers crouch down and open fire into the dusty haze.

German industrial heir Ludwig Merckle is more confident he may not need to sell drugs distributor Phoenix after cashing in shares in HeidelbergCement, two people familiar with his plans told Reuters.

Switzerland's two large banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, could weather a severe deterioration of the economy, Swiss banking regulator FINMA said on Friday, publishing its conclusion from a stress test for the banks.

Grieving Samoans buried their dead in unmarked beachside graves on Thursday as the gruesome task of recovering bodies from villages destroyed by four tsunamis continued and an aftershock shook the region.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank warned on Friday that the global economic recovery might falter as complacent policymakers lost their will to cooperate.

The Philippines declared a nationwide state of calamity on Friday as a super typhoon bore down a week after flash floods killed nearly 300 people in and around Manila.

ConocoPhillips said on Friday weak North American natural gas prices would hurt its third-quarter earnings, and its total oil and gas output would fall nearly five percent from the second quarter.

American Airlines (AMR.N) and fellow Oneworld alliance partners British Airways (BAY.L) and Iberia (IBLA.MC) face fresh European Union antitrust hurdles as they look to extend their pact to include coordinated schedules and prices.

Employers cut more jobs in September than expected and the unemployment rate crept up to 9.8 percent, with economists predicting that the rate will eventually exceed 10 percent before falling in 2010.

A court in army-ruled Myanmar upheld its guilty verdict on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Friday, a legal source said, a ruling likely to keep the Nobel laureate in detention until after next year's elections.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday wrapped up debate on a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and prepared to vote on the legislation next week.

Greece's Forthnet has offered to buy Wind Hellas in a deal that could value the indebted Greek mobile phone group at about 2 billion euros ($2.91 billion), opening the prospect of a bidding war.

A two-minute video of an Israeli soldier held captive by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas for the past three years shows him healthy and coherent and speaking to the camera, Israeli officials said on Friday.

High-risk patients who took a combination of three older heart drugs -- a generic statin, a generic blood pressure pill and a low-dose aspirin -- cut their risk of a heart attack or stroke by as much as 80 percent, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday wrapped up debate on a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system and prepared to vote on the legislation next week.

A shareholder of Cadbury is suing the British confectioner's board and chief executive, saying investors stand to lose out massively if the company refuses to negotiate over a $15.68 billion takeover bid from Kraft Foods Inc.