Hamas Islamist rulers released captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit on Tuesday in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, a Hamas military source said, in a deal ending a saga that has gripped Israel for five years. The source said Shalit, 25, was taken across the frontier from the Gaza Strip into Egypt's Sinai peninsula, where
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Tourism continued to climb in September, with the number of tourism arrivals up by 5.2% over the year earlier to 304,260 compared with 289,126 in September 2010. While there was a 1.7% fall in the number of arrivals from the UK, to 135,103 in September 2011 from 137,473 in September 2010, the buoyant Russian market
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Trade turnover increased in the first half of the year compared with the same period of 2010 according to the latest figures on wholesale and retail trade that exclude repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles. For the period January-June 2011 the Index recorded an increase of 6.0% compared with the corresponding period of 2010. In
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Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways is in talks with Virgin Atlantic to join the UK carrier's bid for Lufthansa AG's British unit bmi, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. The Gulf carrier, which is pushing aggressively to spread its wings in the UK and beyond, is also discussing a possible stake in Virgin
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Apple Inc said on Monday it sold 4 million iPhone 4S in the three days since it went on sale Oct. 14. Sales in stores began on Friday in Japan, Australia, France, the UK, Germany, Canada and the United States. The company took more than 1 million online orders in the first 24 hours after
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The International Monetary Fund has enough capital at the moment, managing director Christine Lagarde said on Monday. "Today, the IMF has appropriate means," Lagarde said on Europe 1 radio. An emerging market G20 source said on Friday that the IMF may need a capital injection of about $350 billion to give it more firepower to
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Greece's budget deficit reached 10.6 percent of GDP in 2010, the country's statistics office said on Monday, revising the data slightly up from a previous estimate of 10.5 percent of GDP. "According to provisional source data, the deficit of the general government for 2010 … is estimated at 24.1 billion euros (10.6 percent of Gross
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BP Plc has accepted a $4 billion payment from partner Anadarko Petroleum towards the Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up, far less than it might have won in court, but a deal that could reduce the overall cost of the disaster for the British group. While BP has given up around $5 billion in potentially
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L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt's daughter won control over her mother's business affairs Monday, the daughter's lawyer said, almost two years after she first asked to take over on the grounds her mother had been exploited. The judge's ruling means that the billionaire's wealth and revenues — including the 88-year old's 30 percent stake in L'Oreal
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Brent crude futures held steady above $112 on Monday, extending the previous session's sharp gains on hopes European policymakers would reach an agreement to tackle the euro zone's debt crisis and help stem a slowdown in oil demand growth. France's Finance Minister Francois Baroin told the Group of 20 major economies over the weekend that
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