By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 2:10pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp and the U.S. Defense Department have reached an agreement in principle on a fifth batch of 32 additional F-35 fighter planes, the Pentagon said on Friday, bringing nearly a year of negotiations to a close. The deal is valued at around $3.8 bi...

By Nick Brown NEW YORK | Fri Nov 30, 2012 1:41pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Airlines' bankrupt parent has asked a judge to extend by six weeks, through March 11, the period in which it has the exclusive right to propose a plan to exit bankruptcy. The request, made jointly with its creditors' committee, was filed on Friday in U.S. Bankruptc...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 4:39pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Consumer spending fell in October for the first time in five months and income growth stalled, leading some economists to cut already weak estimates of fourth-quarter economic growth. Superstorm Sandy was partly to blame for the pullback in spending as the quarter s...

Projections of industrial output for Costa Rica are around 3% for next year, lower than the expected growth of 5% this year. Still, the expected growth for 2013 is better than in many European nations whose outlook is flat. The year began by causing a euphoria among some government analysts, gaining a remarkable 13.8% in the first quarter over the same period the year before. A slowing trend...

By Marilyn Gerlach FRANKFURT | Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:38am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Closer ties with Turkish Airlines (THYAO.IS) could keep Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) in the race for long haul flights to Asia and stem the flow of business to Gulf carriers. A combination of the German airline, Europe's bigge...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:26am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were little changed on Friday, the final trading day of the month, amid a cautious mood as investors kept their focus firmly on U.S. budget talks. Trading has been choppy lately, as investors buy on sporadic dips in the market and react to mixed headlines out...

Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:16am EST (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) and Mazda Motor Corp (7261.T) and their local Chinese partner, Changan Automobile Co Ltd (000625.SZ), said on Friday that they had obtained final approval from the Chinese government to split their three-way manufacturing and sales joint venture into two. Starting immediately, Changan Ford Mazda Automobi...

By Fred Barbash WASHINGTON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:05am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, reapplying his re-election campaign theme of protecting the middle class, heads to Pennsylvania on Friday suggesting that Republicans could spoil Christmas by driving the country over the "fiscal cliff." The president's road trip, visiting a fa...

PARIS | Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:59am EST PARIS (Reuters) - European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Friday that budgetary consolidation in the euro zone would entail a short-term economic impact but the currency bloc was on track for a recovery in the second half of 2013. "We have not yet emerged from the crisis," Draghi told Europe 1 radio. "The ...

By Gareth Jones and Stephen Brown BERLIN | Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:44am EST BERLIN (Reuters) - German lawmakers approved the latest bailout for Greece on Friday by a large majority despite growing unease about the cost to taxpayers less than a year before federal elections. The outcome of the vote in the lower house was never in doubt but it was a tes...

By Daniel Flynn and Leigh Thomas PARIS | Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:15am EST PARIS (Reuters) - The euro zone's crisis is far from over and its members must consolidate their budgets and forge a banking union to put the bloc on a more stable economic footing, the leaders of the IMF and European Central Bank said on Friday. Underlining the bloc's woes, dat...

By Steve Slater LONDON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:11am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays could ax as many as 3,500 investment bank staff and cut its advisory or equities operations in Asia as part of a broader strategic review aimed at fixing the bank's culture in the wake of the financial crisis. The future shape and size of the investment bank is seen ...

By Frank Jack Daniel NEW DELHI | Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:03am EST NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's economy extended its long slump in the last quarter, with lower-than-expected growth keeping it on track for its worst year in a decade and underscoring the urgency of politically difficult reforms to spur a revival. The economy grew 5.3 percent from a year...

By Samuel Shen and Kazunori Takada SHANGHAI | Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:19am EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's state-backed electronic payment services giant, China UnionPay, launched an international arm tasked with speeding its expansion overseas, heating up competition with rivals such as Visa Inc (V.N) and Mastercard Inc (MA.N). The move underscores ...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:42pm EST (Reuters) - The Woodbridge Company Limited, the family company that controls Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.N) (TRI.TO), announced that David Binet will succeed Geoff Beattie as president and chief executive, effective January 1. In a separate statement, Thomson Reuters said on Thursday that Beattie will remain its deputy board chairman and...

By Ben Klayman DETROIT | Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:41pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - For the first time in nearly two decades, GM's Chevrolet brand will be back in the business of selling rear-wheel-drive sedans in the United States. General Motors Co (GM.N) expects the production version of the Chevrolet SS rear-wheel-drive sedan to act as a low-volume car ...

By Richard Cowan and David Lawder WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:38pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday that "fiscal cliff" talks with the White House had made no substantive progress and criticized President Barack Obama and Democrats for failing to get serious about including spending cut...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:33pm EST (Reuters) - In a move that ratchets up tensions in labor negotiations, Boeing Co (BA.N) on Thursday asked for federal mediators to help unstick talks with the union that represents its 23,000 engineers, saying the sides were far apart on pay and benefits. "We hope the expertise of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service can help...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:23pm EST (Reuters) - Fisker Automotive Inc said on Thursday that it has temporarily idled production of its Karma plug-in hybrid after its lithium-ion battery supplier A123 Systems Inc (AONEQ.PK) cut its output. A123, which is the sole battery supplier for the Karma, slowed production after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October...

By Deepa Seetharaman DETROIT | Thu Nov 29, 2012 6:42pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N), vying to challenge Toyota Motor Corp's (7203.T) stronghold on the U.S. hybrid market, said it expects to wind up with 11 percent of the U.S. market for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles this year. This target would be a record fo...

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 6:27pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Andrew Mason will remain CEO of Groupon Inc (GRPN.O), a company spokesman said on Thursday after the board of directors decided to retain the company co-founder as head of the struggling online marketer of daily deals. Shares of Groupon, which fetched $20 in it...

By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:43pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - General Electric (GE.N), famous for branded hardware from lightbulbs to turbines, is pushing hard into software, chief executive Jeffrey Immelt said at the Minds and Machines conference on Thursday. "In an industrial company, avoid software at your own peril," ...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:48pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished higher on Thursday as investors bought on sporadic dips in a market roiled by conflicting comments from Washington about negotiations on an agreement to avoid the "fiscal cliff." Tech shares, including Research In Motion (RIM.TO) (RIMM.O) and Advanced Micro...

The Colombian banking institution Davivienda, one of the fastest-growing in the world, officially took over services from HSBC this week, making Costa Rica the fourth country to host its operations. The other countries are Colombia, Panama and the United States. In the near future the private bank is to take over operations in El Salvador and Honduras. The company announced that it was keepi...

Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:47am EST VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - A French appeals court on Thursday absolved Continental Airlines of blame for a 2000 Concorde crash that killed 113 people and cleared a mechanic at the U.S. airline of the charge of involuntary manslaughter. The verdict comes over a decade after the accident helped...

NEW YORK | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:36am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose at the open on Thursday, following a rally in the prior session, on expectations of progress toward a fiscal agreement in Washington that would prevent a possible recession. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 35.40 points, or 0.27 percent, to 13,020.51. The Standard & P...

FRANKFURT | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:53am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A Federal Reserve official asked for a clearer fiscal outlook from political leaders on Thursday, saying that leaving it to the Fed to lead economic recovery efforts created a dangerous predicament. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher called for more action from the U.S. government to boost em...

By Daniel Bases NEW YORK | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:17am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Argentina has won a reprieve against having to pay $1.33 billion next month to "holdout" investors who rejected a restructuring of its defaulted debt and have waged a long legal battle to be paid in full. A U.S. appeals court granted an emergency stay order on Wednesday t...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:16am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter as restocking by businesses provided a big boost, but consumer and business spending were revised lower in a sobering reminder of the recovery's underlying weakness. Gross domestic product expa...

WASHINGTON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:08am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy grew faster than initially thought in the third quarter, but the momentum is unlikely to be sustained as the nation braces for deep cuts in government spending and tax increases early next year. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.7 percent annual rate, the Commerce Depar...

By Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS | Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:56am EST ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has yet to decide what price to offer bondholders under a debt buyback plan that is central to a bailout deal with international lenders, but the price is likely to vary depending on the bond, a Greek finance official said on Thursday. Questions have arisen over ...

By Jessica Wohl Thu Nov 29, 2012 8:20am EST (Reuters) - Retailers got a lift over the long Thanksgiving weekend, driving gains in November sales despite some pressure earlier in the month from superstorm Sandy, but the results are not expected to match the gains of a year earlier. Sales at stores open at least a year among the chains that continue to repo...

By Norihiko Shirouzu SHANGHAI | Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:47am EST SHANGHAI (Reuters) - General Motors Co unveiled its latest global research center in China on Thursday, where it hopes to take advantage of the country's vast supply of engineering graduates to drive its development of a new generation of electric vehicles. China's auto market has grown ...

By David Milliken and Alessandra Prentice LONDON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 7:06am EST LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England stepped up pressure on commercial banks to shore up their capital on Thursday, days after the government chose a leader of the global push for tighter banking regulation to head the central bank. The BoE's Financial Policy Committ...

By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK | Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:56pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose in volatile trade on Wednesday after comments from the top Republican in Congress on a possible compromise to avoid the "fiscal cliff" turned the market on its head. House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he was optimistic that a budget deal to...

By Leila Abboud PARIS | Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:49pm EST PARIS (Reuters) - Vivendi (VIV.PA) is examining four non-binding offers above 6 billion euros ($7.75 billion) for its Brazilian broadband specialist GVT, according to a person familiar with the situation. The offers are below the 7 billion euros that sources had earlier told Reuters Vivendi was ...

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Katya Wachtel NEW YORK | Wed Nov 28, 2012 2:44pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government is threatening to file civil securities fraud charges against SAC Capital Advisors and is tightening the regulatory screws around Steven A. Cohen, the $14 billion hedge fund's founder and one of the industry's most famous trade...

By Roberta Rampton and Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 28, 2012 1:35pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government banned BP Plc from new federal contracts on Wednesday over its "lack of business integrity" in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a move that could imperil the British energy giant's U.S. footing. The suspension, announ...

WASHINGTON | Wed Nov 28, 2012 11:43am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Speaker John Boehner voiced optimism that Republicans could broker a deal with the White House to avoid year-end austerity measures, saying on Wednesday that Republicans were willing to raise revenues if Democrats agreed to spending cuts. "I am optimistic that we can continue to work ...

By Foo Yun Chee and Sonya Dowsett BRUSSELS/MADRID | Wed Nov 28, 2012 8:19am EST BRUSSELS/MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's four nationalized banks will more than halve their balance sheets in five years, slash jobs and impose hefty losses on bondholders, under plans approved by the European Commission on Wednesday. The measures open the door for nearly ...