U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday as expectations of a China interest rate hike hit commodity prices and dragged energy and materials stocks lower. * The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 62.59 points, or 0.55 percent, to 11,220.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 7.78 points, or 0.64 percent, to 1,205.38. The Nasdaq Composite

Greece will auction 300 mln euros of 13-week T-bills on November 16, continuing its strategy of monthly short-term debt sales, the country's debt agency (PDMA) said on Friday. PDMA, which faces no rollover need in November, is borrowing smaller amounts this month after the spike in yield spreads in the euro zone's so-called periphery, brought

For those who want to try a more adventurous holiday in 2011, but do not want to leave their home comforts behind, a cruise could provide the solution. Cruise Critic (www.cruisecritic.co.uk) — a leading online source of cruise reviews and information — offers its top 10 destinations by boat. Reuters has not endorsed this list:

Highlights of press conferences given by leaders of the Group of 20 major economies on Friday after their two-day summit.   U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA On G20: "The work that we do here is not always going to seem dramatic. It's not always going to be immediately world-changing. But step by step what we're doing

More jobs in the upper ranks of international financial institutions should go to people from emerging economies, President Hu Jintao said on Friday. In a speech to a summit of the Group of 20 major economies, Hu welcomed a recent shift in voting power at the International Monetary Fund to give developing countries more say

The euro fell on Friday on fears that Ireland may need a bailout just like Greece, while a sharp decline in commodities and stock prices hastened a broad retreat from risky assets. Asian stocks were broadly lower, led by a 5 percent drop in the Shanghai composite index — its biggest single-day decline since May

European Union leaders sought on Friday to reassure investors, who have been unnerved by Ireland's fiscal problems, that in the event of a restructuring of any EU state's debt they would not be forced to take a writedown on the value of their bondholdings. The statement by France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain, issued at

G20 leaders drew a veil over weeks of bickering about their economic policies on Friday and agreed to tackle global "tensions and vulnerabilities" that have raised the spectre of a currency war and trade protectionism. The developed and emerging nations agreed at a summit in Seoul to set vague "indicative guidelines" measuring imbalances between their

Dieters, take heart. A new weapon in the fight against fat is on its way: a mobile phone application that counts calories from a photograph of what's on your plate. While existing applications require users to type in the food and the calorie information themselves, software developed by Japan's NTT Communications evaluates the colour and