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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Apple Computer Inc. fell as much as 5% in Wednesday trades after a published report suggested that some company officials may have falsified stock-option documents to maximize profits for executives.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of new homes rose 3.5% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.047 million, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Sales are now down 15.3% in the past year, the government's data showed.

Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Chunghwa Telecom Co., Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and other Asian telephone carriers may take weeks to resume full Internet and phone services in the region after earthquakes off Taiwan damaged undersea cables.

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The yen confounded forecasters by falling this year and may do the same in 2007 as money managers take advantage of Japan's near-zero percent interest rates to finance investments in bonds from the U.K. to New Zealand.

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- As hot as the mergers market is now, it's about to get hotter. All the variables are in place for acquisitions in 2007 to surpass this year's record $3.6 trillion. U.S. stocks are trading close to the cheapest price-to-earnings levels in a decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Yields on junk bonds used to finance takeovers also are near 10-year lows, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. Leveraged buyout firms have $1.6 trillion to spend, Morgan Stanley estimates.

US forces are holding two Iranian nationals detained last week in the Iraqi capital on suspicion of weapons smuggling, military spokesman General William Caldwell has confirmed.(AFP)
An Iraqi judge has rejected Saddam Hussein's appeal and ruled that the former dictator must hang within 30 days. The execution may be controversial, but hundreds of Iraqis want to pull the gallows lever. (SPIEGEL ONLINE 2006)

MINSK/MOSCOW - Belarus issued an implicit threat that it could stop Russian gas deliveries through its pipelines to western Europe unless Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom relented on demands Minsk pay steep price increases in 2007. (FT)