Walt Disney Co. has received green signal from China’s central government to pursue a plan to build a theme park in Shanghai.

The approval will provide the California-based entertainment company with a chance to proceed with a project expected to be one of the largest foreign investment so far in China. 

The Chinese government approved the theme park plan just a few days before US President Barack Obama’s first official visit to China.  

US automaker General Motors took a U-turn on Tuesday when it announced that it would retain its Opel division and cancelled the planned sale to Canada’s Magna International and its Russian partner, Sberbank.

The cancellation of planned sale is a tough blow to the German government, which spent a long time in negotiations with the GM to facilitate the sale to Magana.

German government was ready to provide the GM with a financial aid worth 4.5 billion euros to aid the sale to Magana.

Sprint Nextel launched Dell Inspiron Mini 10 on Monday, the first netbook available from Sprint.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10, which is available with a price tag of $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, is equipped with 10.1 inch LED screen, a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam and 160 GB hard drive.

Sprint’s new netbook runs on its 3G EV-DO Rev. A network.

AT&T and Verizon, which are already in the netbook field, will surely give a tough competition to the newcomer.

Hector Ruiz, chairman of Globalfoundries, has stepped down from his post on Monday after being identified previous week as one of the sources of inside information in the $20 million Galleon hedge fund scandal.

Hector Ruiz has taken voluntary leave of absence and will retire officially on January 4, 2010.

A fresh study by AXA predicted that Britons will face a "pensions dark age" with rising pension poverty as the study found 64 per cent of the Britons plan to depend on the state for support.

Citing reason, AXA said the private pension sector continues to decline and the number of workers withdrawing from the private pension schemes is on the rise.

According to the figures compiled by the AXA, Britain is at the bottom of the G7 league for state-pension provisions.

UK banking sector is all set to experience the break-up of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, a move that will enhance competition and pacify the EU competition commission.

The Treasury said that RBS and Lloyds were required to divest significant parts of their businesses over the approaching four years.

RBS, which is 70 per cent owned by the taxpayer, may sell branches in England and Wales, and its Churchill and Direct Line insurance unit.

Swiss bank UBS suffered a loss of 564 million Swiss francs (equivalent to $552 million) during the third quarter against a profit of 283 million francs last year.

It was the fourth quarterly loss in a row, but the Zurich-based bank said it expected its situation to improve in the approaching months.

UBS, which is one of the biggest losers in the global financial crisis, has failed to stem an outflow of funds. UBS customers withdrew 36.7 billion francs during the third quarter.

Stanley Works agreed to buy Black & Decker Corp for $4.5 billion in stock, in a move that will help the two tool-makers cut costs.

Both, Stanley and Black & Decker expect that the recent deal would save them $350 million per year. Both the tool-makers have suffered hard blows of recession.

Under the deal, Black & Decker shareholders will receive 1.275 shares of Stanley for each share they have.

UK's fragile economy may see Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group getting smaller as these banks has plans to sell off some of their existing business.

European Commission has asked RBS and Lloyds to sell some parts of their existing business as remedied for getting state aid.

RBS, which is 70 per cent owned by the taxpayer, may sell branches in England and Wales, and its Churchill and Direct Line insurance unit.

The Office of Fair Trading has referred the acquisition of Friends Reunited by Brightsolid to Competition Commission, saying the acquisition could harm the online genealogy market. Earlier in August, Brightsolid had agreed to buy the networking site Friends Reunited for £25 million form ITV.

However, CEO Chris van der Kuyl of Brightsolid, which is a division of newspaper and magazine publisher DC Thomson, claimed that the deal would not harm competition in the market.

The Communication Workers Union has threatened the state-owned postal service Royal Mail with legal action over the recruitment of 30000 temporary staff.

The CWC, which resorted to strike over pay, working conditions and modernization, said Royal Mail hired 30000 temporary workers to break the strikes.

But, the Royal Mail said were dealing with the backlog of post and preparing for the Christmas rush.

Mobile operator Orange on Monday unveiled its tariffs for Apple's iPhone, but dashed consumers' hopes for a price war over the new handset.

Orange, which announced almost indistinguishable tariffs for its iPhone from O2's existing one, will start offering the much awaited handset from November 10.

Orange will offer a standard 3G iPhone free of cost to customers taking a 2-year contract at £30 per month, slightly less than O2's contract.

According to figures revealed by Tonight Show which is broadcast on ITV1, Chief Executive of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier received wages worth a whopping ?1 Million last year alone. The huge figure earned, despite the crunching economic situation, has made him the 2nd highest earning executive in the public sector.

In times when postal strikes over wages and benefits have been causing trouble for a long time now, Crozier's pay figures have shocked everyone. Taking over an exact pay check of ?

Shares in Australia's largest department store chain Myer Holdings Ltd. plunged 8.5 per cent on their stock market debut.

Shares in Myer started trading at $4.10-a-share on Monday, but closed at $3.75-a-share, losing 35 cents.

Speaking his mind, Karara Capital’s Akshay Chopra said, “It might put a bit of pressure on the valuation band, and pricing that is expected or achieved, for investors to be persuaded.”

Myer’s main rival David Jones closed at $5.25, down 2 per cent.

Australian house prices were stronger than expected in the September quarter, owing to growing demand and shortage of property for sale.

As per figures compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, house prices in the eight regional capitals jumped 4.2 per cent during the third quarter as compared with the last quarter.

House prices jumped 6.2 per cent from the same period of 2008.

Market experts had projected an increase of 2.75 per cent from the previous quarter.