Colin Firth adds first Oscar to awards haul

Britain's Colin Firth won his first Oscar on Sunday for playing a stammering monarch in "The King's Speech", crowning a virtual clean sweep of the movie awards season. The best actor victory

Nikkei up on futures-led buying, window dressing

Japan's Nikkei average ended higher on Monday, reversing early losses with help from futures-led buying by commodity trading advisers and month-end window dressing by foreign investors who picked up blue-chip cyclical shares.

World stocks rally, oil up slightly

Equity markets rallied after a week-long selloff, and crude oil prices edged higher on Friday but were down from peaks earlier in the week on supply fears sparked by the uprising in