Africa/International

Oil was steady near 25-month highs on Friday following a slew of upbeat U.S. economic data that boded well for demand from the world's top user, ahead of a jobs report expected to show employment expanded for a second straight month in…

The head of Ivory Coast's electoral commission declared opposition leader Alassane Ouattara the winner of the country's contested presidential election, before ruling party loyalists called the announcement an "attempted coup" and…

Google has said it will tweak its search service in an attempt to tackle online piracy, following lobbying by the music industry. The search giant will implement four changes, including the removal of words that are associated with piracy…

The U.S. economy probably recorded a second month of solid job gains in November, which would bolster views the labor market is improving even though the activity is not enough yet to lower the unemployment rate. Nonfarm payrolls likely…

Mining giant Rio Tinto has agreed a tie-up with Chinalco to explore for mineral deposits in China. The deal gives the Chinese state-owned firm a 51% stake in the joint venture, with Rio taking a 49% stake. This is the second deal between…

A strong start to the holiday shopping season signals increasing consumer confidence and raises hopes that the economic recovery is gaining steam. Lured by steep discounts, shoppers stormed the nation's retailers in November — but to keep…

WikiLeaks' American domain name system provider withdrew service to the wikileaks.org name after the secret-spilling website once again became the target of hacker attacks. EveryDNS said in a statement that it dropped the website late…

Government plans to introduce locally-elected police and crime commissioners could cost more than £130 million to set up and run in the first year, figures show. Each of the new roles will attract pay and benefits of about £122,000, an…

After a year of watching auto sales slowly increase month by month, industry executives are finally willing to firmly declare that the U.S. market is in recovery. People who had been too afraid to make a big car purchase are finally coming…

BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is dead, but the political fallout is very much alive. The Obama administration said it won't open up new areas of the eastern Gulf and Atlantic seaboard to drilling, reversing a decision to hunt for…