Asian markets edge up early

Asian stock markets opened Tuesday with modest gains, following leads in Europe and on Wall Street.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rebounded from a five-month low on Monday by 0.2 percent to 8,647.62. South Korea’s Kospi recovered ground lost the day before, jumping 1.6 percent to 1,738.71. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 rose 0.8 percent at 4,113.20. Benchmarks in […]

Gold mine plans divide 1 Transylvanian town

This is fairy tale land and there’s even a pot of gold buried beneath it.
But not everyone’s happy.
With the precious metal at an all-time high, a Canadian company is eager to start blasting out mountains and demolishing parts of the ancient Romanian town of Rosia Montana to build an open-cast mine where 300 tons of […]

Gert weakens, Fernanda forms well away from land

Tropical Storm Gert continues to weaken as it heads northeast into the open waters of the Atlantic after skirting past Bermuda.
The storm’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 40 mph (64 kph) as of late Tuesday morning. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says additional weakening is forecast and Gert will likely lose its […]

Live: Dow falls below 11,000 mark for the first time in nine months

An unprecedented credit rating downgrade of U.S. government debt by Standard and Poor’s helped send the Toronto stock market tumbling about 400 points Monday.
The move Friday evening by the ratings agency has further bruised investor confidence that American and European leaders can stem worsening economic conditions and deal with a European government debt crisis.
The S&P/TSX […]

U.S. job gains could ease investors

WASHINGTON

A year later, Chile’s ‘33′ are mostly unemployed

One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were so dramatically rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean copper mine is that they’re all millionaires and no longer need to work.
The truth: nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed one year ago Friday, and just one, […]

Foreclosure activity down in most US metro areas

Most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas are seeing a sharp drop in foreclosure activity as banks take longer to move against homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments.
In the first half of this year, 84 percent of metropolitan areas with a population of at least 200,000 saw their foreclosure rate drop versus the […]

Fiat lifts outlook after Q2 profit rise

Italian automaker Fiat SpA raised its 2011 forecasts Tuesday after reporting a huge jump in second-quarter profits thanks to the takeover and integration of Chrysler.
Fiat, which controls Chrysler with a 53.5 percent stake, reported second-quarter earnings of euro1.3 billion ($1.9 billion), compared with euro90 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenues rose 40 […]

Second Greece bailout sends world stocks higher

World stock markets climbed Friday as investors signaled their approval of a massive new bailout plan for Greece and broader measures to tackle the continent’s debt problems.
A rally that began the day in Asia extended to Europe, with all major markets in positive territory.
In early European trading, London’s FTSE 100 rose 0.9 percent to 5,950.06. […]

James Murdoch contradicted by his legal manager

James Murdoch has been contradicted over testimony in which he claimed to have been unaware of a critical piece of evidence in Britain’s phone hacking scandal.
Murdoch was quizzed by parliamentarians earlier this week over an email dating back several years which suggested that other journalists at his company were involved in the campaign of illegal […]