IBT Staff Reporter

An estimated 50,000 people in Alexandria, Egypt and thousands in more than a dozen Middle Eastern cities have taken to the streets protesting against Israel.

After receiving a $3 million ransom, Somali pirates released an oil-laden Saudi supertanker.

The Illinois House of Representatives voted on Friday to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, which sets up a Senate trial to decide whether he should be thrown out of office on charges of abuse of power, including attempting to sell the senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

The severe drought in Kenya may result in ten million people going hungry in Kenya the government said on Friday.

Airstrikes and rockets continue to be fired as both Israel and Hamas reject the U.N. call for an immediate cease fire.

Russian state controlled oil firm OAO Gazprom could unblock its gas shipments to Europe Friday on the condition that a monitoring mission led by the EU tracks the gas flow through Ukrainian pipelines.

U.S. stocks opened mixed on Friday after a report that the U.S. unemployment rate climbed in December and that the jobs lost total in 2008 was the most since the end of World War II.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. -- currently under bankruptcy court protection -- has reached a deal to sell its private equity unit to spin off into an independent firm, a source closed to the matter informed according to Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.

The solution to the current dispute between Russia and Ukraine that has resulted in the worst halt in gas supplies to Europe in years may rely on an intermediate company called RosUkrEnergo AG, according to analysts.

Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas continued to fight for a second week in the Gaza Strip on Friday despite a call by the U.N. Security Council resolution to stop. The Israeli air force bombarded Gaza while Hamas attacked with rockets.

Experts forecast that the U.S. jobless rate likely climbed ranging from 6.9 to 7 percent in December, the highest level since 1993. Predictions estimate non-farm payrolls fell by 525,000 in December.

Bernard Madoff ordered the transfer of £100 Million ($150M)from his UK company to his US firm weeks before he confessed of a $50 billion fraud.

US banking giant Citigroup said it had 1.4 billion dollars in direct exposure to Netherlands-based chemical giant LyondellBasell.

The 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show completed its first full day in Las Vegas Thursday with technology products galore but industry expectations of lower sales this year amid a tough economy.

SanDisk Corporation today unveiled its third-generation family of solid-state drives (SSDs). Using multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, SanDisk's G3 Series establishes new benchmarks in performance and price-performance leadership in the SSD industry.

China is cracking down on what it considers to be vulgar websites across the internet, chiding sites like Google and MSN for not cleaning up their sites.

Researchers in Japan have made a new robotic suit that will aid farmers with augmented strength for the laborious task of tending the fields.

Microsoft's website struggled to stay online today as the masses swooned to its online properties to get their hands on a special pre-release version of its upcoming operating system.

Dell unveiled a new netbook at the CES show on Friday, and gave a sneak peek of its new ultra-thin laptop PC.

Supercomputers are deployed around the world for a myriad of scientific and academic research; the supercomputer AMD plans to build will be for games however.

On Thursday the European Union said that gas supplies would resume after agreeing with Russia on supervising the gas flow through Ukraine.

An Illinois General Assembly investigative committee has recommended that the state's House of Representatives impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday that Iraq would one of the top foreign policy challenges President-elect Barack Obama, according to an interview with the Associated Press.

On Thursday gunmen shot and killed a food monitor for the United Nations' World Food Program making it the second killing of a WFP humanitarian worker in Somalia in three days.

On Thursday the US Fifth Fleet announced the establishment of a new international naval force to fight off pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean following a wave of hijackings off the coast of Somalia.

All aid delivery of food and fuel by the UN 1.5 million people in the embattled Gaza strip has been suspended.

A 6.2 magnitude earthquake shook Costa Rica on Thursday leaving 2 people hurt and causing some damage in San Jose and Alajuela cities.

Sherry Johnston, mother of Levi Johnston, who was arrested on December 18 on charges of selling OxyContin has spoken out for the first time since the arrest.

The Australian Dollar opens little-changed from this time yesterday at 0.7120 but has experienced another wide 24-hour range.