WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Nineteen U.S. leaders, including former Treasury secretaries, urged Congress Tuesday to ratify International Monetary Fund reforms and remove the key obstacle to its implementation.“A stronger IMF, driven by U.S. leadership, supports U.S. and global interests,” they wrote in a letter to the leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives.“We therefore urge the Congress to continue its longstanding, bipartisan support of the International Monetary Fund for our self-interest

The U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Index broke its all-time record Tuesday and around the world stocks rose strongly, following better-than-expected economic data in Europe and the United States and a pledge from China, the world's second largest economy, that it would meet ambitious growth targets.On Wall Street, the Dow rose 1.1 percent to 14,278.42, passing all-time highs set in October 2007.  The S&P 500 advanced 1.2 percent to 1,542.96.In Germany, the DAX closed Tuesday 2.3 percent higher to 7,8

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Travelers at U.S. airports are already being greeted with longer lines and delays due to government spending cuts launched last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday.Napolitano warned that the lines for customs and security clearance could double as the spending cuts, called the sequester, begin to hit government departments after they came into effect on Friday.“We are already seeing the effects at some of the ports, the big airports, for example. Som

BRUSSELS (AFP) ― Eurozone finance ministers said Monday that a long-delayed bailout for Cyprus could be fixed within 10 days after Nicosia agreed to submit its financial sector to independent scrutiny amid concerns of large-scale money-laundering.Long resisted by the previous Cypriot government, the first face-to-face talks between the other 16 ministers from the euro currency area and their new Cypriot counterpart, Michael Sarris, were hailed by Eurogroup chairman and Dutch Finance Minister Jer

China targeted 2013 economic growth of 7.5 percent and vowed an unwavering fight against corruption Tuesday at the start of an annual parliamentary session that will seal its transition to new leadership.Outgoing premier Wen Jiabao pledged to protect China's "territorial integrity" as the government laid down another double-digit rise in military spending to modernize the world's largest standing army, at a time of mounting tensions.In his final major act after a decade in charge of day-to-day g

The BP executive who led the company's probe of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion denied Monday that his investigators narrowly focused on rig workers' actions to spare onshore engineers and managers from blame for the disaster.At the start of the second week of a trial over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a lawyer for rig owner Transocean Ltd. asked the BP executive, Mark Bly, why his team's report doesn't mention a call from BP rig supervisor Donald Vidrine to an onshore engineer l

WELLINGTON (AFP) ― Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. announced on Monday it will sell its 44 percent stake in New Zealand’s Sky Network Television for a reported NZ$815 million ($671 million).In a statement, News Corp.’s Australian arm News Limited, which owns the stake in New Zealand’s largest subscription television provider, said shares would be offered to a range of institutional and retail investors.“Following the sales, News Limited will no longer have any holding in Sky Network Television Limit

WASHINGTON, (AFP) ― President Barack Obama will nominate Walmart Foundation head Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Monday to be his next budget chief, amid a sharp row with Republican lawmakers, officials said.The announcement comes after Obama signed severe, across-the-board cuts of $85 billion in federal spending this year after failing to clinch an agreement with Republicans to solve the nation’s deficit and debt problem.A White House official said Obama would announce Burwell as his choice to lead t

China’s foreign currency reserves, which have surged more than 700 percent since 2004, are enough to buy every central bank’s official gold supply ― twice. The Chart of the Day shows how China’s foreign reserves surpassed the value of all official bullion holdings in January 2004 and rose to $3.3 trillion at the end of 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The price of gold increased 263 percent from 2004 through Feb. 28, with the registered volume little changed, according to data based on Int

China may hold off tightening monetary policy after growth in services and manufacturing weakened, underscoring challenges for the nation’s leaders as they open the annual session of parliament tomorrow. Expansion in industries including retailing, transport and banking, was the slowest in five months in February, an official survey of purchasing managers showed yesterday. Gauges released two days earlier pointed to manufacturing growth cooling. Premier Wen Jiabao will outline economic policies

Swiss voters voiced their anger at perceived corporate greed Sunday by approving a plan to boost shareholders' say on executive pay.Some 67.9 percent of voters backed the “Rip-Off Initiative,” with 32.1 percent against, according to the official count broadcast by Swiss public television station SRF.The outcome of the referendum was considered a foregone conclusion after opinion polls in recent months showed strong public support for the initiative.News last month that the outgoing board chairma