Yahoo! News: Health News

Europe mulls major step towards "fiscal union"
Analysis: Economic pain takes toll on U.S. earnings forecasts
Analysis: India's growth: build in an incompetence discount
AOL urges shareholder approval of its board nominees
HSBC gets formal approval for Oman merger, names board, CEO
Scania CEO sees Europe truck market shrinking 10 percent
Group seeking to buy EFG Hermes to appeal to regulator
American Airlines, flight attendants fail to cut costs
AOL urges shareholder approval of its board nominees
Annual Warren Buffett lunch auction begins Sunday
Three voices on the jobs report and what's ahead
New farm bill would end direct payments to farmers
Spain king's first trip after elephant hunt mishap
Reports: Oman oil strikers returned to jobs
German opposition seeks financial transaction tax
Iraq's oil exports drop by 2.2 percent in May
Study: 'Smart bomb' drug attacks breast cancer
US employers waiting and watching before hiring
Fisker expands recall of plug-in hybrid Karma

Europe mulls major step towards "fiscal union"

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 07:55 AM PDT

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - When Jean-Claude Trichet called last June for the creation of a European finance ministry with power over national budgets, the idea seemed fanciful, a distant dream that would take years or even decades to realize, if it ever came to be. One year later, with the euro zone's debt crisis threatening to tear the bloc apart, Germany is pushing its partners for precisely the kind of giant leap forward in fiscal integration that the now-departed European Central Bank president had in mind. ...

Analysis: Economic pain takes toll on U.S. earnings forecasts

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 05:02 AM PDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Expectations for U.S. corporate earnings are deflating fast as the euro zone crisis deepens and economic data around the world disappoints. Standard & Poor's 500 earnings for the second quarter are now forecast to grow 7.4 percent, down from an early January forecast of 10.1 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. But remove profits-generating machine Apple Inc and the financial sector , which has weak year-ago comparisons, from the numbers and the forecast looks much worse. After those exclusions, the rest of the index is expected to report a 0. ...

Analysis: India's growth: build in an incompetence discount

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 02:06 AM PDT

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - It had been another brutal day for the rupee on the foreign exchanges as India's economic crisis escalated and, travelling home from a visit to Myanmar last week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summoned journalists on his plane for a briefing. The one statement he had prepared for the media that night, however, concerned allegations of corruption leveled against him and his cabinet ministers - not the economy. ...

AOL urges shareholder approval of its board nominees

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 06:26 PM PDT

(Reuters) - AOL Inc, waging a proxy fight with activist hedge fund Starboard Value, said on Saturday its shareholders should approve all eight nominees for its board of directors after an advisory service recommended the approval of only six. In a statement, the Internet and media company lauded a report by Institutional Investor Services calling for the rejection of Starboard's full slate of nominees, but said, "ISS reached the wrong conclusion in failing to recommend that AOL stockholders vote for all eight of the company's highly qualified director nominees. ...

HSBC gets formal approval for Oman merger, names board, CEO

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 03:28 AM PDT

DUBAI (Reuters) - HSBC Holdings has received formal regulatory approval to merge its business in Oman with local lender Oman International Bank , it said in a statement to the Muscat stock exchange on Sunday. The combined entity, named HSBC Bank Oman, begins operations today after gaining assent from the sultanate's Ministry of Commerce & Industry, with shares in the bank to trade from Monday under the HBMO.OM ticker, the statement said. HSBC, Europe's biggest bank, will own 51 percent of the new entity. ...

Scania CEO sees Europe truck market shrinking 10 percent

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 01:17 PM PDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Scania Chief Executive Leif Ostling, who will leave the position to join the board of majority-owner Volkswagen , told Reuters on Saturday he expects the European truck market to shrink by about 10 percent this year. He said truck markets had not changed much since Scania reported on its first quarter in April and his outlook for the European market, Scania's biggest, was in line with the drop forecast by Volvo . "It's tough still, in general and in Europe," he said. "We gave roughly the same figure as Volvo did for the European market. ...

Group seeking to buy EFG Hermes to appeal to regulator

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 04:48 PM PDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Shareholders of Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes voted on Saturday against a group of investors seeking to buy the bank, but the investors will appeal to Egypt's regulator to suspend the decision, the group targeting the bank said. The group, called Planet IB, said it intended to offer 13.50 Egyptian pounds ($2.23) per share to buy the Cairo-based investment bank, Egypt's biggest. Shares in EFG closed at 10.99 pounds on Thursday, the last day of Egypt's trading week. ...

American Airlines, flight attendants fail to cut costs

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 09:38 AM PDT

(Reuters) - American Airlines failed to agree on cost-cutting measures with its flight attendants' union, setting the stage for a judge to rule on voiding the contract for the bankrupt carrier, a subsidiary of AMR Corp, the union said in a statement late on Friday. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, citing a need to cut labor costs, while its flight attendant and pilot unions have pushed for a merger with rival carrier US Airways Corp to reduce expenses. ...

AOL urges shareholder approval of its board nominees

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 03:37 PM PDT

Annual Warren Buffett lunch auction begins Sunday

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 09:13 AM PDT

It's true that Warren Buffett hired the hedge fund manager who won the last two private lunches with him that are part of an annual auction, but he doesn't expect the event to become a recruiting tool for Berkshire Hathaway.

Three voices on the jobs report and what's ahead

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 08:17 AM PDT

Only a month ago, surprisingly strong corporate earnings and steady growth in the U.S. economy had investors in a cheery mood. The Dow Jones industrial average stood at its highest level in more than four years.

New farm bill would end direct payments to farmers

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 07:04 AM PDT

A program that puts billions of dollars in the pockets of farmers whether or not they plant a crop may disappear with hardly a protest from farm groups and the politicians who look out for their interests.

Spain king's first trip after elephant hunt mishap

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 06:57 AM PDT

Spain's king will fly to South America on Sunday for his first major trip since falling and breaking a hip on an elephant hunt seven weeks ago.

Reports: Oman oil strikers returned to jobs

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 05:36 AM PDT

Oman's state media says nearly 400 workers in the country's oil industry are being reinstated after they were fired for staging strikes seeking better conditions and pay.

German opposition seeks financial transaction tax

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Germany's opposition leader says Chancellor Angela Merkel's government must introduce a financial transaction tax to secure his center-left party's support for the European Union's fiscal treaty.

Iraq's oil exports drop by 2.2 percent in May

Posted: 03 Jun 2012 12:47 AM PDT

Iraq's Oil Ministry says the country's crude oil exports dropped by 2.2 percent from April to May due to increased domestic demand.

Study: 'Smart bomb' drug attacks breast cancer

Posted: 02 Jun 2012 09:15 PM PDT

Doctors have successfully dropped the first "smart bomb" on breast cancer, using a drug to deliver a toxic payload to tumor cells while leaving healthy ones alone.