British education and media publisher Pearson Plc has agreed to acquire a 5% stake in Barnes & Noble Inc's Nook Media unit for $89.5 million, sending shares of the bookstore operator up as much as 9.7% on Friday. The Nook Media unit comprises Barnes & Noble's digital businesses – including the Nook e-reader and tablets
More
The condition of an Indian medical student whose gang rape triggered mass protests has deteriorated and there are signs her vital organs have failed, the Singapore hospital treating her said. The 23-year-old, who was severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi, was flown to Singapore by the Indian government
More
Midfielder Samir Nasri and defender Gael Clichy should be available after injury for Manchester City's Premier League trip to Norwich City on Saturday (1500). The duo missed the champions' 1-0 defeat at Sunderland in midweek that meant second-placed City dropped seven points behind leaders Manchester United. "Samir and Gael are back on the training pitch
More
World shares sagged and the dollar climbed on Friday before U.S. lawmakers resumed talks on avoiding a fiscal crisis, while expectations that Japan will inject new stimulus into its economy pushed the yen to a two-year low. President Barack Obama and lawmakers will meet as a New Year deadline looms for reaching a deal to
More
Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war. Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition
More
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party is set to win a parliamentary election on January 22 although the popularity of a far-right party opposed to Palestinian statehood is growing, polls showed on Friday. Two out of three surveys showed the right-wing Likud losing voters to political newcomer Naftali Bennett's religious party Bayit Yehudi (Jewish
More
Portugal's budget deficit narrowed to 5.6 percent of GDP in the first nine months of 2012 from 6.7 percent a year earlier, still above the year-end target set for the bailed out nation. Economists say extraordinary one-off measures are likely to allow Lisbon to meet its 5 percent target but the underlying budget shortfall is
More
President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a new U.S. human rights law that he says is poisoning relations. The law, which has ignited outrage among Russian liberals and child rights' advocates, takes effect on Jan. 1. Washington has called
More
Italy's debt costs rose only slightly at its last auction of long-term debt in 2012, drawing a solid response from investors yet to be unnerved by the risks surrounding February elections and the exit of its trusted technocrat government. The treasury sold 3 billion euros ($3.9 billion) of its 10-year bond paying a yield of
More
– Greece could yet rekindle crisis; also risk policymakers relax Back in May, as the euro zone veered deeper into crisis, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman penned one of his gloomiest columns about the single currency, a piece in the New York Times entitled "Apocalypse Fairly Soon". "Suddenly, it has become easy to see how
More