IBT Staff Reporter

Japan scaled back measures for handling the H1N1 flu on Friday but there was no let up for the rest of Asia as experts warned of more trouble with the approach of winter in the southern hemisphere.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev challenged EU leaders at a summit on Friday to help Ukraine pay its gas bills in order to prevent disruption of Russian supplies to Europe.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sworn in on Friday for a second five-year term with expectations his strengthened left-of-center coalition could both reform a slowing economy and help millions of poor.

MasterCard Inc will lose more than half of a $59 billion portfolio of U.S. debit card users to Visa Inc after JPMorgan Chase & Co shifted more business to its rival, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The United Nations launched an appeal on Friday for $543 million for more than 2 million people displaced by fighting in northwest Pakistan, where officials said villagers were turning against the Taliban.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi pleaded not guilty at her trial on Friday and blamed the regime's lax security for allowing an American intruder to swim uninvited to her lakeside home, her lawyers said.

General Motors Corp restructuring efforts are likely to go right up to the June 1 deadline set by the Obama administration, but not beyond, a White House economic adviser said on Friday.

Florida-based BankUnited , which was closed by the U.S. government and sold to investors, was conducting business as usual on Friday and there was no sign of panic among customers, its new chief executive said.

The white crescent-shaped sand beach located in Kauai, Hawaii has been named America’s number 1by international expert on beaches and coastal processes, Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman.

Vice President Joe Biden, the most senior U.S. official to visit Lebanon in 26 years, took a swipe at Hezbollah on Friday, but denied seeking to sway an election that may unseat a Western-backed coalition.

President Barack Obama, seeking to end the schedule delays and cost overruns that plague U.S. defense spending, signed a law on Friday to reform the way the Pentagon purchases major weapons systems.

Most U.S. banks will repay government bailout funds by the fourth quarter of 2009, and banks will likely issue more stock over the next few quarters, analysts at Morgan Stanley said.

Stocks jumped to session highs on Friday, recovering from an earlier drop, as investors snapped up energy shares and stocks of companies benefiting from a weaker dollar.

Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings said business will remain challenging for much of 2010 and it may not keep its U.S. credit card arm if the problems facing the business intensify.

OPEC ministers are expected to make no change to oil supply when they meet in Vienna next week as higher prices ease their concerns about overflowing fuel inventories and the deepest fall in demand for years.

Magna International emerged on Friday as the early favorite to acquire General Motors unit Opel after German officials said the Canadian car parts group had submitted a better plan than rival bidders Fiat and RHJ .

GMAC LLC, which is giving the U.S. Treasury Department a 35.4 percent equity stake, said on Friday it might take 17 years for the government to shed its investment if the auto and mortgage lender were to go public.

Mobile firms could struggle to match the success of Apple's App Store when creating their own online software supermarket, hampered by technical issues, a lack of applications and increased competition.

Canada's Sino-Forest Corp said on Friday it increased its bought-deal offering size by C$38.5 million to $330 million by selling more shares to the underwriters.

Vietnam's Sacombank STB.HM, 10 percent owned by Australia's ANZ, said on Friday its January-April gross profit fell 8.4 percent to 491 billion dong ($27.6 million).

British bank Barclays has sidelined private equity houses bidding for iShares, its exchange-traded fund unit, and is looking to sell its entire asset management arm instead if offers approach $12 billion.

Contraction in world economic output appears to be slowing and a recovery could begin at the end of this year, Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation chief Angel Gurria said on Friday.

Business software maker American Software Inc offered to buy the remaining outstanding shares of Logility Inc that it does not already own for $7.02 per share in cash through a tender offer.

On Wednesday, a jury in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discriminated against Jeff Kapche when it refused to hire him as a Special Agent because of his diabetes.

The head of the Russian deposit insurance agency head said on Friday the share of non-performing loans may climb to 20 percent by the end of 2009 -- the gloomiest forecast from officials to-date.

Freddie Mac, one of the largest providers of funding for U.S. housing, is set to break ground on its first bond backed by commercial mortgages, a source familiar with the offering said on Friday.

You won't get an email saying Pope Benedict added you as a friend and you can't poke him or write on his wall, but the Vatican is still keen to use the networking site Facebook to woo young people back to church.

Technology executives say they are prepared to cut more costs if the downturn proves more prolonged than expected, but finding places to get further savings won't be easy.

Yahoo Inc is looking to buy companies that will allow it to become a bigger player in social networking and revamp its family of products, Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said on Wednesday.