Starbucks Corp said on Friday night that an outage affecting payment systems at a number of its stores in the United States and Canada had been resolved.

Japan's consumer inflation was expected to edge up slightly in March as oil prices stabilized and consumer goods prices stayed steady, calling the Bank of Japan's bullish forecasts into question.

China said on Friday that urban employment held up in the first quarter even as economic growth slowed to a 6-year low, but the labor ministry warned that authorities cannot be "blindly optimistic" as the pace of job creation is slowing.

China needs to cut lending to coal-related industries and shift more financing to cleaner businesses in order to address a huge funding gap that is hindering the country's war on pollution, a study drawn up in part by central bank researchers said.

Yum Brands Inc, owner of KFC and Pizza Hut chains, on Tuesday said business in its biggest market China is recovering from a meat scare at one of its minor suppliers and the division would finish the year strong.

Anonymous Hackers attacked Israeli websites with minimal success. However, breached military computer networks.

Jaki Kweka is that rare breed of gourmet chocolatier. She makes fine chocolate in Africa using local African ingredients.

The United States is pressing Mexico, the top importer of U.S. chickens and turkeys, to relax restrictions imposed on poultry shipments because of an outbreak of a strain of avian flu deadly to birds, an Agriculture Department spokeswoman confirmed on Friday.

The United States on Friday pressed the world's leading exporters, including Germany and Japan, to generate more economic growth within their borders, warning that the world could not rely too much on U.S. consumers.

U.S. consumer prices increased for a second straight month in March on rising gasoline and housing costs, a sign of an uptick in inflation that should keep the Federal Reserve on course to start raising interest rates this year.