IBT Staff Reporter

A Merrill Lynch analyst, two Goldman Sachs employees and a worker at a plant that printed Business Week magazine have been charged in an insider trading scheme that netted more than $6.7 million, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Walt Disney Co.'s ABC television network will offer some of its most popular shows, such as Desperate Housewives and Lost, for free on the Internet in a two-month trial, the company said on Monday.

Byow U.S. unemployment reflects a vigorous economy but does not risk fueling inflation at the moment, U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy Mark Warshawsky said on Monday.

Federal Reserve governors said on Monday it was still unclear how much further interest rates need to rise to achieve appropriate levels of balance between growth and inflation.

The London Stock Exchange and Euronext have held secret talks about a all-shares merger of equals to create a European super exchange valued at about 6 billion pounds ($10.5 billion), the Observer newspaper said on Sunday.

China must do more to stimulate consumption and tweak investment policies if it wants domestic purchases of foreign currencies to trim its swollen foreign exchange reserves, an official paper said on Saturday.

The recent forays by global banking powers Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc into U.S. Internet banking don't alarm the chief executive of ING Direct, which has been in that market for five years now.

It would be harder for the Federal Reserve to deal with a spike in inflation than a softening of growth, a key Fed policy-maker said on Friday, suggesting the central bank may want to err on the side of higher interest rates.

U.S. stocks fell on Friday as interest-rate worries outweighed expectations that stronger-than-expected jobs creation and tame wage inflation in March would lead to growing profits.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday that he will ask OPEC to set the long term price for a barrel of oil at $50 USD, a price nearly $16 below current levels.

Mercedes Benz, the luxury arm of Daimler-Chrysler AG, plans to introduce a new generation of diesel powered vehicles in Japan this fall. Mercedes hopes that a re-engineered diesel engine can spur sales in a country where diesel technology is seen as dirty and outdated compared to gasoline.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) signed on Monday a joint venture agreement with Agrolinz Melamine International (AMI) to build a $200 million melamine plant at Ruwais near Abu Dhabi. The agreement calls for a 60:40 equity split between Adnoc and AMI in the new company, Melamine International.

Teach a Kenyan cattle herder how to fish and you'll feed him for life. That was at least what Norway's development agency believed in the 1980s, when it built a fish-processing factory now abandoned and decaying on the shores of Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya.

Many of the world's top food companies are not doing enough to help cut the salt, fat and sugar which are contributing to a global, diet-related health crisis, according to a report on Tuesday.

Rich countries' spending on official aid to the world's poor leapt to a record high in 2005 due to large debt relief packages for Iraq and Nigeria, the OECD said on Tuesday.

Constrained shopping ahead of a later Easter holiday this year led to flat to lower sales at U.S. chain stores in the last week of March, reports said on Tuesday.

The dollar was broadly flat on Monday after paring early gains on news growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector last month was slower than financial markets had anticipated.

U.S. government debt prices fell Monday as a mixed bag of economic data reinforced expectations the Fed could raise interest rates at least once more.

A lawyer representing Apple Computer Inc. wrote off the infringement lawsuit against the company by The Beatles' Apple Corps as ridiculous.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced earlier this month that his government is looking to make its rupee more convertible. India is considering the policy change to stimulate foreign investment and to reach its self-stated goal of 10 percent annual GDP growth.

Britain's second largest airline officially entered the UAE market yesterday when Virgin Atlantic's Airbus A340-600 landed at the Dubai International Airport from London Heathrow. The new flight represents the airline's first Middle East route, and its 26th destination worldwide.

The Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) announced on Monday a partnership with Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop the Upper Zakum Oil field located off-shore from the Abu Dhabi Emirate.

Softbank Corp. has reached an agreement to buy the Japan unit of British mobile phone company Vodafone for 1.75 trillion yen, or $15 billion.

Kelly Rutherford, star of Gossip Girl, seeking a divorce from estranged husband David Giersch has become embroiled in a fight for the custody of their two-year-old son Hermes.

The world's biggest food group Nestle is buying Kraft Foods' North American frozen pizza business for $3.7 billion and ruled out an offer for Cadbury , it said on Tuesday.

Another Doomsday prophet bites the dust as Harold Camping's confident rhetoric that the Second Coming of Jesus coupled with a pulverizing earthquake and rapture would occur on May 21 comes to nothing.

Although Apple is not attending this year's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, it is still rolling out new products.