Washington, Jan 18 : South Korean mobile maker Samsung has said it is not interested in taking over Research In Motion, refuting a tech blog report that fueled a nearly ten percent surge in the BlackBerry maker's shares.

Earlier a tech blog report suggested RIM was seeking to sell itself to the consumer electronics giant.

But a Samsung spokesman, James Chung, said that "haven''t considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in buying RIM," The Chicago Tribune reports.

Chung also said Samsung had not been approached by the Canadian firm for a takeover.

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Washington, Dec 30 : The US has officially confirmed selling 84 Boeing F-15 jets to Saudi Arabia, which is its main ally in the Middle-East. The US will also upgrade 70 existing Saudi F-15s as per the agreement. The US Congress approved a deal worth 60 billion dollars last year, which would be covered in next 10-15 years, and this agreement is a part of it only.

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Washington, Dec 24 : Sales of new homes in the US rose 1.6 percent between October and November to reach an annualized rate of 315,000, authorities said Friday.

Yet the figure compares unfavourably with the level of November 2010 - 323,000 - and is far below the annual rate of 700,000 sales that is typical of a strong housing market.

Last month's reading makes it likely that 2011 will end as the worst year for new home sales since the government started keeping track in 1963.

The market for new homes was strongest last month in the South, where sales rose 12.9 percent, followed by the Midwest with an increase of 7.5 percent.

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Washington, Dec 21 : A sharp surge in the US housing market in November brought some relief to the country's turbulent economy.

The Department of Commerce said Tuesday that ground has been broken on 685,000 privately owned housing projects in November, 9.3 percent up from a month earlier, and the highest level since April 2010.

It attributes the sharp surge to the unexpected increase in the construction of new apartments, Xinhua reported.

Apartment starts surged 32.2 percent in the same month to 230,000 units after a sharp decline of 20.2 percent in October.

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New York, Dec 21 : New York's "quality of life" led around 50.2 million tourists to visit the city this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.

"Five and half years ago, we set an ambitious goal to reach 50 million visitors by 2015, and in 2008, we accelerated that goal to be the end of 2012," Xinhua quoted Bloomberg as saying in a statement Tuesday.

"Today, we know that we will exceed this significant milestone by year's end," he said.

"New York City's quality of life has contributed to this great success and we are confident we will sustain the success of our tourism industry in the months and years ahead," he said.

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Washington, Dec 20 : Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani is reportedly in talks over the possible purchase of a stake in television and Internet conglomerate Network18.

Ambani, India’s wealthiest man, has been in deal talks with Network18 founder and controlling shareholder Raghav Bahl, people familiar with the situation have revealed.

Bahl''s portfolio includes partnerships that run India''s versions of CNBC, MTV, Nickelodeon and CNN, as well as a top-rated Hindi entertainment channel and some of the country''s largest e-commerce sites.

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Washington, Dec 19 : Global and competitive businesses are turning to social media to bridge distances and build relationships with its customers and employees, a new study has revealed.

Savvy companies, both large and small, have recognized the value social media can bring to their organizations, something that employees and customers are expecting more and more.

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Washington, Dec 17 : The present day scenario demands evaluation of team training to ascertain if the popular process really makes a difference or not, researchers say.

To give an accurate answer to this demand, a new study sheds light on what works and what does not in team building.

"There's a demand for evaluations-an emphasis on showing that team training makes a difference in safety, decision-making, communication, clinical outcomes-you name the ultimate criteria the industry has," said Eduardo Salas, an organizational psychologist at the University of Central Florida.

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Washington, Dec 16 : The United States plans to intensify focus on India, China, Brazil and other priority markets where its exports have the best potential for continued growth.

The intensified focus on these markets is part of Commerce Department's top three priorities to help American businesses 'build it here and sell it everywhere,' focusing on supporting advanced manufacturing, increasing US exports, and attracting more investment to America from all over the world.

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Washington, Dec 13 : The United States has said that it would eventually like India to move forward with foreign direct investment in retail trade but it was a decision for the Indian government to work out.

"We said last week that we felt like it was a deal that was in the best interests of both the United States and the Indian people and businesses and would obviously be a boon to both our economies," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Monday.

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Washington, Dec 10 - The US trade deficit declined 1.6 percent in October to $43.46 billion, its lowest level this year, the Commerce Department said Friday.

The cumulative trade deficit for the first 10 months was $465.22 billion, compared with $420.73 billion in the same period of 2010.

US exports of goods and services fell 0.8 percent in October to $179.17 billion, while imports dropped 1 percent to $222.64 billion, the Commerce Department said.

The value of US capital goods exported in October, $42.3 billion, is the highest on record, the department said, while exports to China and Latin America also reached unprecendented levels.

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Washington, Nov 18 : In a bid to prevent Air India from receiving a $3.4 billion loan for the acquisition of 30 new aircraft, a trade body for leading US airlines has sued the US Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank.

The loan comes at entirely too high a price and "puts us at a competitive disadvantage", the Air Transport Association of America (ATA) President and CEO Nicholas E. Calio remarked.

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New York, Nov 2 : Growth of the US manufacturing sector slowed in October to just above the threshhold where expansion begins and contraction is left behind, the Institute for Supply Management said Tuesday in its latest report.

ISM's PMI index stood at 50.8 percent in October compared with 51.6 percent in September and below the approximately 52 percent that analysts had forecast.

The decline placed the indicator very close to the 50-percent level, below which the manufacturing sector is said to be in a state of contraction.

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Washington, Oct 20 : The energy policy in the US is moving in the wrong direction and may risk making energy more scarce and expensive, John S. Watson, chairman and CEO of Chevron corporation, has warned.

"Our energy policy is rife with contradictions," said the head of the second largest US oil company at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank.

He said Wednesday that the Obama administration's energy policy "would reduce competitiveness of US oil companies" and diminish their ability to invest, reported Xinhua.

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Washington, Oct 20 : US consumer prices rose 0.3 percent last month, bringing the 12-month inflation rate to 3.9 percent, the Labour Department said Wednesday.

The core Consumer Price Index, which excludes more volatile food and energy prices, climbed only 0.1 percent in September, while year-on-year core inflation was 2 percent.

Wholesale prices increased 0.8 percent in September and by 6.9 percent over the preceding 12 months, according to official data released Tuesday.

Numbers pointing to possible growth in inflationary pressure could limit the Federal Reserve's scope for further measures to stimulate the still-sluggish US economy.

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