IBT Staff Reporter

Japan's economy grew an anemic 0.1 percent in the April-June quarter, reinforcing expectations that a shake-out in global markets will prompt the central bank to rethink a rate hike this month.

AirTran Holdings Inc. said on Sunday it has walked away from its hostile bid to acquire Midwest Air Group Inc. as Midwest has accepted a rival takeover offer.

Dutch chemicals company Akzo Nobel is set to announce on Monday it has agreed to buy British rival ICI for about 8 billion pounds ($16.18 billion), people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Politicians need to address problems such as pollution and accelerating urbanization to ensure sustainable wealth creation in Asia, the United Nations said.

POSCO, the world's third-largest steel maker, is seeking approval from the Vietnamese government to establish a steel mill at a cost of $4.5 billion, state media reported on Monday.

Stock index futures signaled a rebound on Wall Street on Monday after gains in overseas markets and data showing U.S. retail sales grew last month, reassuring investors about consumer spending.

On the heels of a crisis, investment bank shares are looking cheap. Some say it's a great time to buy.

For investors, the subprime crisis is the first real test of will since the Internet stock bust six years ago.

As the market punishes banks and lenders for loose lending practices, investors want to know what's really at stake.

Credit spreads and collateralized debt obligations may not mean much to the average U.S. consumer, but if market gyrations persist, Wall Street's pain may come home to hurt Main Street.

It will be a weekend of high anxiety for investors on Wall Street, as they brace themselves for what will likely be another rollercoaster ride for the battered financial markets.

Countrywide Financial Corp led shares of U.S. mortgage companies lower on Friday as investors received fresh reminders that a shortage of liquidity might crimp profits.

The last time the U.S. markets experienced such wild swings as they have in the past week, Wall Street warriors in their 20s and 30s were trading baseball cards and lunchbox snacks, not stocks and bonds.

Wall Street economists do not foresee an imminent interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve despite a credit squeeze that is pressuring financial markets and forcing central banks to funnel liquidity into the system.

Wall Street's roller-coaster ride, triggered by the meltdown in subprime mortgage lending, is spreading pain through financial markets -- but has not hit Main Street yet.

Central banks probably will halt their monetary tightening campaign and the Federal Reserve may start cutting interest rates to ward off a global credit crunch, financial market dealers said on Friday.

Jeffrey Blitz does not want his work stuffed into a neat little Hollywood box, which is one reason the director of Rocket Science has jumped from documentaries to feature films to television and back again.

J.K. Rowling and her French publisher said on Thursday they were worried about organized groups of translators, not individuals, after a boy was arrested for posting a translation of the last Harry Potter book online.

Elvis, the man, has passed away. The legend - and the marketing - live on.

Vivendi's Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, on Thursday said it will test the sale of songs from artists such as Amy Winehouse, 50 Cent and the Black Eyed Peas, without customary copy-protection technology.

Electronic Arts Inc. and Hasbro, Inc. on Friday said they have made a licensing agreement to create electronic versions of some of Hasbro's most popular games including Monopoly, Scrabble and Yahtzee.

The top three U.S. wireless service providers said on Friday they would start selling the successor to Motorola Inc's Razr phone, which includes a 2 Megapixel camera and a music player.

'Galactic Suite,' the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Internet companies, retailers and the government must do far more to protect people from the dangers of the lawless Wild West of cyberspace, an influential group of British Members of Parliament said on Friday.

Yahoo Inc. President Susan Decker purchased about $1.1 million of the Internet company's shares this week just after the stock hit a three-year low.

Infrared thermometers that take a person's temperature with a sweep of the forehead may not be as accurate as old-fashioned measures, a study suggests.

South Korea may be ready to offer billions of dollars to rebuild the failing North Korean economy when leaders meet for only the second ever summit between the enemy states later this month, analysts said.

Homes and farmland drowned in increasingly severe floods are affecting some 500 million people a year and straining relief efforts, a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.

Chinese-made toys are overwhelmingly safe and the number of unsafe products is dwarfed by the total export value, state media said on Friday, a week after Mattel pulled goods because of fears about lead in paint.