Israel OKs 112 new apartments in settlement

JERUSALEM — Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized a West Bank settlement to build 112 new apartments despite Israel's settlement slowdown, his ministry confirmed Monday.

Barak says the new construction in the Beitar Illit settlement is necessary because of safety issues.

The 10-month settlement slowdown declared in late November was to have restricted building in the West Bank to some 3,000 apartments whose construction was already underway.

JERUSALEM - Israel authorized the construction of 112 new apartments in the West Bank despite a pledge to slowdown settlement building, the government disclosed Monday — a decision that enraged the Palestinians a day after they reluctantly agreed to resume peace talks.

Word of the new construction in the Beitar Illit settlement came amid a flurry of activity by the U.S. to try to salvage peacemaking.

Early gains in stocks unraveled Wednesday after the Federal Reserve signaled that the economic recovery will be slow.

Stocks ended mixed after the Fed's announcement that economic activity has improved in nine of its 12 districts but that the gains are "modest."

The report dampened enthusiasm that followed an upbeat report on services industries and more takeover news. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 9 points. For a second day, the Dow erased its losses for 2010 before surrendering the gains by the close.

WASHINGTON - The recovery is losing steam.

The economy is probably expanding at just half the brisk 5.9 percent pace at which the government yesterday estimated it grew in the fourth quarter.

Business spending will make up for some of a slowdown in consumer spending, but probably not enough to reduce the jobless rate much.

All that adds up to a long slog ahead for an economy trying to get back on firm footing after the worst recession since the 1930s. The economy continues to grow, but it won't feel like much of a recovery this year amid high unemployment, record-high home foreclosures and tight credit.

WASHINGTON - The recovery is losing steam.

The economy probably is expanding at just half the brisk 5.9 percent pace at which the government Friday estimated it grew last quarter. Business spending will make up for some of a slowdown in consumer spending - but probably not enough to reduce the jobless rate much.

All that adds up to a long slog ahead for an economy trying to get back on firm footing after the worst recession since the 1930s.

LONDON-Euro-zone private-sector output grew for the seventh consecutive month in February, as a stronger-than-expected surge in manufacturing output offset a slowdown in services expansion, a survey by financial-information firm Markit showed Friday.

"So while the recovery continued, consistent with GDP [gross domestic product] rising by approximately 0.4% in the first quarter so far, it was unbalanced and concerns persist about its sustainability," Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said in a statement.

NEW YORK - KBW Inc. on Thursday reported a fourth-quarter profit, reversing a year-ago loss, but its shares tumbled nearly 7 percent as the results widely missed analysts' expectations.

Investment banking revenue climbed 23 percent to $33.5 million from $27.3 million a year earlier, but tumbled 42 percent from the 2009 third quarter's $57.8 million. The company, which focuses mainly on the financial services sector, said the decline was primarily due to customers cutting back on equity capital market transactions. CEO John G. Duffy said the "typical year-end slowdown" began earlier than usual in the latest quarter.

reporting from whistler, canada - putting the brakes on the world's fastest luge track to prevent the type of crash that killed a young slider during a training run didn't do much to alter the standings saturday among the world's elite sliders after the first two of four runs. with a light snow falling, germany's felix loch, who holds the track record of 95.6 mph, was in first place with a combined time of 1 minute 36.570 seconds.

WASHINGTON-More than 57 million Americans have become ill from the H1N1 influenza virus and nearly 11,700 have died, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the new figures show the H1N1 pandemic virus is still spreading, they also reflect a slowdown in the transmission of the illnesses since last fall. The CDC had last estimated about 47 million Americans had been sickened, 213,000 were hospitalized and almost 10,000 had died through mid-November.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's economic recovery stalled in the fourth quarter of 2009 as weaker consumption and investment offset firmer exports, leaving Europe's largest economy on a weak footing going into 2010.

Crisis in Credit | Germany

GDP was unchanged quarter-on-quarter, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Office showed on Friday, undershooting analysts' expectations for a 0.2-percent rise.

Credit Suisse Group would like a bit of, well, credit please.

Sure, the Swiss bank missed market expectations in the fourth quarter with net income of just 800 million Swiss francs ($749.1 million), a huge drop from the 2.4 billion francs the previous quarter. But what do you expect when you have to compete against born-again rivals, flush with government bailout funds and nourished by cheap central-bank emergency facilities? Factor in a pronounced seasonal slowdown at the end of ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - The euro rose on Thursday ahead of a key European Union summit that may shed light on a possible rescue package for Greece, while the Australian dollar surged as strong jobs data revived talk of a rate rise as early as March.

The Australian dollar rose more than 1 percent against the dollar and the yen, getting a lift from data showing a bigger-than-expected rise in Australian employment in January and a fall in the jobless rate to an 11-month low.

FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--Germany's Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Thursday swung to a fourth-quarter net profit, helped by a tax gain in the U.S., but some analysts were disappointed by a slowdown in corporate and investment banking gains from the previous three quarters.

The bank lifted its dividend for 2009 to EUR0.75 a share from EUR0.50 for 2008 and said it was better capitalized than ever before.

Germany's largest-listed bank said net profit in the fourth quarter was EUR1.3 billion, after a loss of EUR4.8 billion a year earlier. Analysts had forecast EUR660 million profit for the quarter, but the result was ...

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LONDON (Reuters) - Manufacturers revved up the pace of activity to a 15-year high last month, according to a survey on Monday, suggesting the economy made a strong start to 2010 after a limp return to growth at the end of last year.

However, a slowdown in the pace of mortgage lending and the first fall in mortgage approvals in more than a year injected some uncertainty about the sustainability of any upturn.

Climatologists have puzzled over why global average temperatures have stayed roughly flat in the past decade, despite a long-term warming trend. New research suggests that lower levels of water vapor in the stratosphere may partly explain the anomaly.

The study, appearing in the journal Science, points out that the concentration of water vapor in the stratosphere has dropped about 10% in the past decade, triggered by unexplained cooler temperatures at certain high altitudes above the tropics.

The dollar rose against European currencies Tuesday but fell versus the yen as China moved to slow down lending at its banks.

China has been putting the brakes on its economy, which charged ahead at a 10.7 percent pace in the fourth quarter, by reining in bank lending and tightening monetary policy. That has raised fears that a slowdown there could hurt trade and a nascent recovery across the globe.

BANGKOK (AP) - Asian stock markets fell for a fifth day Tuesday as China's lending curbs and slower growth in South Korea added to worries the global recovery will sputter once stimulus spending fades.

Major benchmarks were down about 1.5 percent or more while oil slid below $75 a barrel. The dollar rose against the euro and fell versus the yen.

China's efforts to slow the explosive growth in lending that underwrote its recovery has unnerved investors for more than a week. Unprecedented government spending and record.

The Dow Jones industrial average had its fourth big drop in five trading days yesterday, sliding nearly 217 points. Over three days, the Dow lost 552 points, or 5.2 percent, and over the last five days, it fell 537 points, including a 115-point gain Tuesday. All the major indexes fell more than 2 percent yesterday.

Investors are finding bad news wherever they look. Even before Obama announced his plan Thursday, they were selling stocks on disappointing earnings and concerns that a possible slowdown in China's economy might spread.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday said they were considering cutting off debate on Republican amendments to health-overhaul legislation and warned that the Senate could work on the bill through Christmas.

Debate so far on the bill has moved slowly and focused on two amendments: one offered by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.) that would steer $1 billion in surplus funds generated by the bill toward women's health efforts, and another by Sen. John McCain (R., ...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's month-long general election ended on Wednesday with the ruling Congress-led coalition forecast to be leading over the opposition Hindu-nationalist alliance.