Indian investors at a December 14 speech by Afghan President Hamid Karzai were not convinced that the latter's country is safe enough to carry out their investment plans, according to a Bloomberg report.

Dara compiled by Bloomberg indicated that investors are exiting from their gold-backed exchange-traded products this year. $69.5 billion in value was removed in the ETPs and analysts expect an additional 311 tons will be removed from the ETPs next year.

Some industry observers believed excess liquidity spurred by central banks' economic monetary policies could result to asset bubbles in niche markets by year 2014.

At a luncheon meeting hosted by Keidanren lobby group and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, corporate leaders expressed the key importance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for the revival of the Japanese economy.

On Saturday, the Chinese State Council said that it has instructed the China Securities Regulatory Commission to life the approval restrictions on small and medium-sized companies with less than 200 shareholders.

The government of North Korea under Kim Jong-un appeared to be purging close allies of disgraced political leader and family member Chang Song-thaek as the former orders its business people in China to come home.

A Sprint and T-Mobile merger will most likely not happen as the former needs to overcome certain hurdles to ensure that a smooth transition could take place, according to a ZDNet article.

Last-minute bettors on Friday were said to have driven the amount of jackpot money for Mega Millions from an estimated $425 million to over an estimated $550 million, according to lottery officials on Saturday.

Parent company Gulf Film welcomed Debbie Stanford Kristiansen as new chief of its subsidiary, cinema chain for UAE Grand Cinemas as it prepares to implement plans for its next phase of expansion.

The the government of the United Arab Emirates through its Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) agreed to develop a luxury tourism resort in Montenegro, said Prime Minister Milo Dukanović in a statement published on his government's website.

A 2013 Billionaire census report by Wealth-X and UBS showed an increase in the number of millionaires in the Middle East, and that amount of wealth hold by Middle Eastern billionaires topped any other region in the world.

Fair trade regulator The Competition Commission of India said it has cleared the proposed merger of France's Alstom Power Holdings SA and domestic industrial player Kalyani Group.

Moped, a messaging platform startup, had been acquired by local cloud-based software startup 6Wunderkinder, according to the former's announcement on its website. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Yahoo Inc had a bad time this week, observed TechCrunch as the company struggled to appease its customers, including small business owners due to the outage of some of its key Web services.

The fight between Pay-television companies and major US broadcasters, and TV over Internet startup Aereo would most likely see intervention from the US government, according to a report on Investors Business Daily today.

Jason O'Grady offers Bitcoin speculators a more cost-effective investment in Litecoin, a crypto-currency which is second to Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization.

Coca-Cola Co's decision to split its bottling division and franchising unit had elicited mixed reactions from analysts and the financial markets. Coca-Cola Co reasoned that it intends to go back to its traditional franchising model after the separation has been completed.

Recent study about the unfamiliarity of Bitcoins in most of Americans deduced that unless the virtual currency actually collapses, speculators, especially early investors, could continue reap gains as the virtual currency continuously rises.

The news about Google Inc's plan to use the technology of British chip designer ARM Holdings Plc for the former's server chips had seen the latter's shares rising to as much as 5.7%.

BlackBerry Ltd released a brief statement late Thursday that it has extended its deadline for debtholders who would like to purchase additional shares to January 13 next year.

With Microsoft wanting to consider an internal employee for its new chief and its rumored shortlist dwindling with the promotion of Steve Mollenkopf as new Qualcomm chief, a TechCrunch report said the tech giant's new CEO might be Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise chief Satya Nadella by default.

Cambridge, England-based ARM's acquisition of graphics and lighting tech for games maker Geomerics was strategic, as the former intends to extend its reach in visual computing.

According to one of the two sources who were knowledgeable of the process, private-equity firm Sycamore Partners might announce its $1.2 billion acquisition of Jones Group Inc as early as next week.

SecondMarket founder and chief executive Barry Silbert claimed in an article on Entrepreneur that Wall Street will soon invest their money in hundreds of millions into Bitcoin.

US operator of shopping malls Simon Property Group announced its proposed spin-off of its cluster portfolio of its strip centers and malls as a REIT on Friday.

US casino operator Las Vegas Sands said on Friday that it will drop its over $30 billion investment plans into Eurovegas, a mega-casino project to be established in Madrid.

The European Union through its European Banking Authority expressed warning similar to China, Germany and Norway regarding the risks associated in using Bitcoins as payment.

Cell Buddy, an Israeli startup, vows to eliminate the risks of mobile phone users getting charged unexpectedly with roaming fees when traveling abroad, an Associated Press report said.

A report by Reuters said the financial crisis had shifted consumer spending habits in the UK from making bulk purchases in superstores to frequent small purchases in nearby small shops, prompting major grocers to change focus of their capital investment to the new consumer trend to attract potential investors.

Investbank, Smolenksy and Project Finance Bank had been stripped off of their operating licenses due to dubious activity and payment issues with creditors and depositors, the Russian central bank said in separate statements on Friday.