Asian stocks retreated and government bonds rose on Tuesday in a sobering realisation the U.S. takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac addressed some risks stemming from the financial crisis but has not solved it. Increased uncertainty about the global economic outlook favoured the dollar, which hit a one-year peak against a basket of currencies,

British house prices kept falling sharply in the three months to August even as the average number of home sales per surveyor hit a new low, a survey showed on Tuesday. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its house price survey balance improved slightly to -81 in August from -83 but still showing a

Top cellphone maker Nokia has opened up its media sharing site and games offering on Facebook and is looking to broaden ties with the fast-growing social networking site. Niklas Savander, the head of Nokia's Internet services business, said the world's largest handset maker was talking to many large social networking firms, including Facebook, to ease

Google Inc has stepped up efforts to digitize dozens of historical newspapers and make scanned images of the original papers available online, the Internet search leader said on Monday. In a blog post on the Silicon Valley-based company's website, Google said it is looking to make old newspapers searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers

Nokia's Internet offering is far from ready and the world's top cellphone maker is seeking further acquisitions to speed up roll out of new services, Niklas Savander, the head of the unit, said in an interview. Nokia bought U.S. digital maps firm Navteq for $8.1 billion in July and has acquired ten smaller firms to

Capital Intelligence, the international credit rating agency, raised Monday the Slovak Republic’s long-term foreign and local currency ratings to ‘A’ and its short-term ratings to A1, while the outlook remains ‘stable.’ The upgrade reflects Slovakia’s improving economic fundamentals and the country’s upcoming accession to the eurozone, which will help to insulate the economy against balance

Blackberry maker RIM was the biggest winner in a slowing smartphone market in the second quarter, roughly doubling its market share from a year ago to 17.4%, research firm Gartner said on Monday. The market was still dominated by Finland's Nokia Oyj , which sold 15.3 million phones with capabilities like e-mail and navigation, giving

Electronic Arts Inc has delayed its latest Harry Potter video game until next summer, a title it expected to reap $120 million in revenue and 13 cents a share in profit, the video game publisher said on Monday. EA expects to sell the game "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" in the summer of 2009,

Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's stocks took a dive while their debt soared on Monday, as investors bet the U.S. government's takeover of the mortgage finance firms would wipe out shareholders but fully guarantee their bonds. Equity markets around the world surged on the bailout news as hopes rose that the U.S. Treasury's plan to