IBT Staff Reporter

Smithers, British Columbia, isn't a typical Latin music hub, but Cuban-born singer-songwriter Alexis Puentes has always done things his way.

Several weeks ago, as Michael Franti was notching his first Billboard Hot 100 single in a two-decade-plus career, he found himself in surgery with a ruptured appendix.

Suzuki Motor plans to spend about 30 billion yen ($322.6 million)to build a factory in India around 2011, boosting its production capacity in the country by 30 percent, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.

The producers behind

Filled with unexpected turns and subversive humor, Werner Herzog's

American International Group Inc agreed on Saturday to sell a part of its asset management business to Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li's Pacific Century Group for about $500 million, after an auction process that dragged on for months.

Three watercolours believed painted by a young Adolf Hitler were auctioned off for a total of 42,000 euros ($60,000) in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg on Saturday.

The Dutch state has asked the European Commission (EC) for more time to reach agreement over the sale of some ABN AMRO [ABNNV.UL] assets to Deutsche Bank, the Dutch Finance Ministry said on Saturday.

German director Werner Herzog is competing against himself at the Venice film festival this year with two pictures in the main lineup.

Paul DeGooyer is tired -- for good reason. It's about two weeks before the September 9 release of MTV's

Chinatrust Financial, Taiwan's top credit card issuer, offered $2.4 billion for AIG's Taiwan Nan Shan Life unit, outbidding rivals, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Saturday.

G20 finance leaders on Saturday agreed to coordinate a removal of emergency economic packages when recovery takes firm hold but they struggled on the detail of measures to rein in bank pay and lending rules at the root of the recent crisis.

The World Trade Organisation ruled on Friday that European loans for Airbus were illegal subsidies under world trade rules, U.S. lawmakers said, but European sources said Washington did not win a sweeping victory.

G20 finance leaders struggled on Saturday to pin down specific measures to tighten bank pay and lending rules to prevent a repeat of the financial chaos that triggered the worst global recession in decades.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a proponent of a global gas suppliers' cartel, will visit Central Asia's main gas producer Turkmenistan on Sunday and Monday, Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said on Saturday.

A 14-year-old Palestinian boy died on Saturday after being wounded in a shooting incident involving Israeli soldiers in the northern border town of Beit Hanoun, Palestinian medical workers said.

NATO officers met air strike victims and their families in Afghanistan on Saturday and their commander took to the TV airwaves in a bid to cool anger over an incident that undermines efforts to win hearts and minds.

A senior Iranian official has accused the United States of feeding forged intelligence to the U.N. nuclear watchdog that says Iran had studied ways to make atomic bombs.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced new measures on Saturday to encourage Americans to save more money for retirement, a move the White House said would put the economy on a stronger footing in the future.

China sacked the top official of the strife-torn city of Urumqi as well as the regional police chief on Saturday, as the town crept back to calm after days of sometimes deadly protests that inflamed ethnic enmity.

G20 finance leaders sketched out plans on Saturday that would force conservative rules on banks to curb risky lending blamed for triggering the financial crisis.

G20 finance leaders pledged on Saturday to keep economic life-support packages in place until a recovery is firmly secured, but reached no deal on putting limits on bankers' pay.

The world cannot be complacent about economic recovery and will need to keep emergency stimulus packages in place well into next year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday.

G20 finance leaders pledged on Saturday to keep economic life-support packages in place for now, slap tighter controls on bankers' pay and give a bigger voice to emerging markets in the international institutions.

Vietnamese police have arrested two bloggers and a journalist for their involvement in a plan to print T-shirts opposing China's investment in a bauxite mining project and its claims over disputed islands, sources said.

Bank regulators closed four Midwestern banks and one in Arizona on Friday, bringing to 89 the number of U.S. banks to fail this year as deteriorating loans continue to take their toll on financial institutions.

Top U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission officials were in the dark that staff were probing Bernard Madoff until the former financier was arrested in December 2008 for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, a federal watchdog said in a report released on Friday.

Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen and directors were generally unaware that staff were probing Bernard Madoff until the former financier was arrested in December 2008 for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, a federal watchdog said in a report released on Friday.