2.  World's largest steel producer Arcelor Mittal has expressed
interest in buying the troubled US based coal firm Massey
Energy Co, says a media report .
 Quoting people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street
Journal said, "Steel giant Arcelor Mittal SA is among the
companies that have expressed interest in buying Massey
Energy Co if the coal miner decides to sell itself."
 Luxembourg-based Arcelor's preliminary exploration of a
possible deal began a few months ago and is in the early
stages, the report added. Last week, Coal India chairman
Partha Bhattacharyya had said that the company is in talks to
acquire mines from two US companies , Peabody Energy Corp
and Massey Energy Co.

3.  The technology industry's latest rivalry takes centerstage next week
when Internet powers Google Inc and Facebook lay out their
competing visions to create a new generation of Web services at a
high-profile conference in San Francisco.
 The relationship between the two Internet icons has become
increasingly confrontational, and the battle will likely intensify on
Monday when Facebook is expected to introduce a revamped
version of its messaging technology that could pose a challenge to
Google's Gmail.
 And investors hoping for an eventual wave of initial public offerings
by a new generation of fast-growing Web start-ups will keep an eye
on appearances by executives from Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn.

4.  The head of the European Union warned on
Tuesday that the 27-nation bloc will not survive if it
fails to overcome a debt crisis plaguing euro
currency governments.
 Hours from a meeting of finance ministers in Brussels
to grapple with an exploding debt crisis that has
already brought Greece to its knees, and now
threatens Ireland and Portugal, Van Rompuy said
that the EU and eurozone were in danger from
alarm on financial markets.
 Analysts expect the ECB to announce "further steps
towards normalisation of
its money market operations"

5.  A Raja flouted almost every rule in the book, ignored
advice from the prime minister down and indulged in
blatant favoritism while awarding mobile licenses to
mostly undeserving companies, the country’s chief
auditor has said, in a stinging indictment of the former
telecom minister who is accused of causing a loss of
nearly Rs 177,000 crore to the government.
 Using language rarely ever used against a minister, the
Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) accused Raja
of granting “undue benefits” to Reliance
Communications and giving “undue advantage” to the
erstwhile Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB), singling out
these two companies for special mention in sub-
headings of its report submitted to Parliament on
Tuesday. The report mentioned Swan as a “front” for the
Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance.

6.  A Qantas jet was forced to return to Johannesburg
late on Tuesday after a bird strike damaged one of
its engines, the latest in a series of incidents at the
Australian airline since an engine failure on an
Airbus A380 nearly two weeks ago.
 The Sydney-bound Boeing 747 with 171 passengers
suffered minor engine damage and would be
delayed by more than a day as Qantas had to
ship replacement parts to South Africa from
Australia.
 Qantas has kept its A380s grounded since the
accident and has used its 26 Boeing 747s to fill
gaps in its schedule.

7.  The Egyptian unit of telecom giant Vodafone has
dropped an advertisement depicting an early Muslim
scientist, Abbas Ibn Firnas, as a dim man who fell off a cliff
when trying to fly with feathered wings.
 The Britain-based company made the decision after
receiving complaints from viewers, who took to the social
networking sites Facebook and Twitter to complain about
what they said was an insult to the historic Islamic figure.
 Ibn Firnas, a Muslim Berber scientist who died in 887, is said
to have jumped from a height, wings attached and
covered head to toe in feathers, in a failed attempt at
flying, although he survived the jump.

8.  General Motors Co's swift journey from dying company
to blockbuster IPO is a remarkable story by any
measure.
 Yet President Barack Obama and his Democrats have
received little political credit for it, even though White
House "car czars" engineered the transformation as they
shepherded the automaker through a goverment-
sponsored bankruptcy.
 Obama trumpeted GM's journey as a "success story"
and said taxpayers were on track to recover more from
the automaker than the $30 billion his administration
spent on the restructuring. That does not count the
nearly $20 billion spent during the Bush administration in
2008 to bail out GM.

9.  Dell Inc reported better-than-expected profit and
margins and raised its yearly outlook for operating
income growth, but sales came in below Wall
Street's forecast despite solid demand from large
corporations.
 The personal computer maker reported net
earnings for the third quarter ended October 29 of
$822 million, or 42 cents a share, up from $337
million, or 17 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
 Revenue rose 19 percent to $15.4 billion, below
Wall Street's estimate of $15.76 billion.