IBT Staff Reporter

North and South Korean envoys failed on Friday to resolve a dispute over Pyongyang's demands for salary and rent increases at a joint factory park in the communist state that is one of its few sources of hard cash.

Several staff at a Chinese television station were suspended from their jobs after footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests slipped past censors and was broadcast to the public, a human rights group said on Friday.

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co is considering separating a plan that links buying its Amsterdam-listed fund with its own moves to list on the NYSE, a source familiar with the matter said, throwing further doubt on whether the private equity giant will list in New York.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 64th birthday in detention on Friday as supporters worldwide condemned her trial and called for tougher sanctions against the military regime.

Air France will compensate the families of the victims of a June 1 crash in which 228 people died, the company's chief executive said on Friday.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday demanded an end to street protests that have shaken the country since a disputed presidential election a week ago and said any bloodshed would be their leaders' fault.

The U.S. Senate rejected on Thursday an attempt to strip a $1 billion program aimed at spurring flagging U.S. car sales from a pending $106 billion war funding bill.

Beijing's bid to boost the solar energy sector could draw more than $10 billion in private funding for projects and put China on track to become a leading market for solar equipment in the next three years.

Kyocera Corp, fighting to hold its own in a competitive solar panel market, is banking on a revival of Japanese subsidies to bolster sales, and said orders for its panels in Japan have jumped this year.

The European Union is likely to miss its target of cutting energy consumption by a fifth by 2020 unless it takes bolder action, the European Commission said at the start of a public consultation.

Research In Motion offered investors an outlook on Thursday that fell short of some expectations, sending the BlackBerry maker's stock sliding 5 percent even as the company reported a higher quarterly profit that topped forecasts.

A global shift toward nuclear power is prompting countries to rush to lock in long-term access to tight supplies of uranium, and China and India look to be the next players to get in on the action.

China Unicom , one of China's top three mobile carriers, may be close to a deal that would see it become the exclusive seller of Apple's iPhones in China for two years, a Merrill Lynch analyst said.

Equity markets and high yielding currencies gained on Friday while bonds and the dollar fell, as U.S. jobs and factory data the previous session rekindled hopes that the global economy may be recovering from recession.

Google Inc released a tool that translates Internet blogs, news articles and text messages from English to Persian, and vice-versa, in a move the firm said will improve access to information amid the turmoil and media restrictions following Iran's disputed election.

The city of Beijing will recruit tens of thousands of volunteers to monitor the Internet, state media said on Friday, echoing decades of mobilizing senior citizens and other volunteers to patrol its neighborhoods.

Few events in the technology world can rival the attention a new iPhone launch draws, but the return of Steve Jobs to Apple Inc would surely be one of them.

The International Monetary Fund is likely to revise its 2010 growth forecast for the world economy up with signs the rate of decline in global output has moderated, a senior IMF official said on Friday.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appealed for calm on Friday and attacked enemies questioning the result of a presidential vote that has sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic's history.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Friday, as stocks were poised to add to the previous session's gains.

Global LCD TV sales volume is expected to increase by 21 percent this year, faster than a previous forecast, helped by strong sales in developed markets and China's stimulus spending program, speeding up the transition to flat-screen TVs, DisplaySearch said.

Chief executives of some banks that received federal money, including Bank of America Corp, Morgan Stanley and Regions Financial Corp, used company jets for their personal use, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website.

Sony Corp Chief Executive Howard Stringer said the loss-making Japanese electronics conglomerate's turnaround efforts, which include job cuts, plant closures and a management reshuffle, are advancing well.

Air France-KLM, Europe's biggest airline, may need to cut a further 3,000 jobs but only through natural attrition, its chief executive said on Friday.

Asian stocks snapped a four-day slide on Friday and government bond yields climbed after upbeat U.S. factory and jobs data provided more evidence that the global economy is recovering from its deep recession.

Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Ken Lewis was approached by three former Merrill Lynch executives this year to discuss buying back some or all of their old company, but he politely rebuffed them, the Financial Times reported on its website. Dan Tully, former Merrill CEO, Launny Steffens, former head of Merrill's private client business, and Winthrop Smith Jr, son of one of Merr...

Texas billionaire Allen Stanford will appear in a federal court in Virginia on Friday over allegations of massive fraud involving his Antigua bank, U.S. officials said after he surrendered to the FBI.

The following are comments by European Union leaders at a two-day summit starting on Thursday in Brussels.

European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to tighten financial supervision and create pan-European watchdogs to help prevent another global economic crisis.