On Wednesday, the euro hit an 11-month low against the dollar and stocks eased after the Federal Reserve issued a warning that the sovereign debt crisis of Europe could hurt the U.S. economy but failed to signal fresh action to stimulate growth.

Euro/dollar slumped to its lowest level since January at $1.3005.

“If we get a further deterioration of the euro zone debt crisis, if we see a lot of countries being downgraded, or more problems in the banking sector, this $1.30 is not going to hold,” said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, chief analyst at Danske in Copenhagen.

The dollar index .DXY that tracks the dollar’s value against a basket of currencies rose as high as 80.407.

Reliance Industries Ltd has started lining up content for its proposed 4G rollout.

A subsidiary of RIL, Infotel Broadband Services Ltd, bought a 38.5 per cent stake in Extramarks Education Pvt Ltd, an online education portal that focuses on school education and digital learning.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

According to a media release by RIL, the investment in Extramarks has been made through an affiliate company Reliance Strategic Investments Ltd.

Sources said this acquisition would offer the company’s 4G users access to this education portal.

The company declined to talk about the size of the investment.

A media release by RIL said, “The investment by Infotel will help Extramarks to pursue its aggressive growth plans in further developing services and wider market penetration. Extramarks’ digital distribution model will provide invaluable service to the student community across age groups, including education support and study help at affordable prices.”

On Thursday, European leaders were preparing for the possibility of Greece leaving the euro zone to preserve the 12-year-old single currency.

Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou was told by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a torrid meeting in Cannes that Athens would not receive a cent more in aid — Greece was due an 8 billion euros aid payment this month — until it votes to meet its commitments to the euro zone.

From news.yahoo.com:

In Athens, Greece’s powerful finance minister broke ranks with his prime minister, rejecting a proposed referendum on staying in the euro, hours after they received an ultimatum from France and Germany to make up their minds.

The growing chaos in Greece and uncertainty over the euro zone sent stocks and commodity prices lower in Asia, and fueled a rush into safe-haven German bonds.

On his return with Papandreou to Athens from Cannes, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos issued a defiant statement, saying Greece’s euro membership was a historic achievement and “cannot depend on a referendum”.

“Greece is something we can get over, something we can live without,” France’s Europe minister, Jean Leonetti told RTL radio in an interview.

A study on Thursday revealed that thirty large and profitable U.S. corporations paid no income taxes in 2008 through 2010.

Among the 280 Fortune 500 companies studied, Pepco Holdings, a Washington, D.C.-area power company, had the lowest effective tax rate, at negative 57.6 percent.

From news.yahoo.com:

The statutory U.S. corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, one of the highest in the world, but over the 2008-2010 period, very few of the companies studied paid it, said the report.

The average effective tax rate for the companies over the period was 18.5 percent, said Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, both think tanks.

Their report also listed General Electric Co, Paccar Inc, PG&E Corp, Computer Sciences Corp and NiSource Inc as among the 30 that paid no taxes. All 280 corporations examined were profitable over the period.

“But that does not mean that low-tax corporations bear no responsibility … The laws were not enacted in a vacuum; they were adopted in response to relentless corporate lobbying, threats and campaign support,” the report said.

The newest iPhone from Apple Inc left Wall Street and fans wishing for more than a souped-up version of last year’s device at a time when rival smartphone makers are nipping at its heels.

Fans of Apple were disappointed to note that the new iPhone 4S is identical in form to the previous model as they hoped for a thinner, bigger-screened design.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

It remains to be seen whether the iPhone 4S can stem market share gains by phones running Google Inc’s Android software. Samsung Electronics, notably, is growing global shipments several times faster than Apple and is now estimated at within a hair’s breadth of catching up in worldwide market share.

“It’s been 16 months and all you’ve got is an A5 processor in the existing iPhone 4,” BGC Partners’ analyst Colin Gillis said of the new Apple phone. “It’s a mild disappointment, but they’re still going to be selling millions of units.”

The iPhone 4S’s voice commands — for sending messages, searching for stock prices and other applications — caught the attention of several analysts who argued it could profoundly change the user experience.

The shares of Apple fell as much as 5 percent, before recovering with the broader market to close down 0.6 percent.

The chief executive of Ford Motor Co., Alan Mulally, said recently that the company is planning to add 7,000 jobs in the United States over the next two years.

Mulally, speaking to a small group of reporters in Bangkok, however declined to comment on progress in negotiations on a new labor contract in the United States with the United Auto Workers.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

Asked if he was worried about a double-dip recession in the Unites States, Mulally said he expected the economy to continue to expand.

He said Ford, the second-largest U.S. car maker, would not be slowing its expansion in Asia, despite slower economic growth in China and India.

Joe Hinrichs, the head of Ford’s operations in Asia, said the company was keeping a close watch on capacity in China but he remained confident in the market there.

Hinrichs added that he expected to see “tremendous” growth in the Indian market.

Reliance Industries (RIL) recently announced that it had completed the sale of a 30 per cent stake in 21 oil and gas blocks in the country to BP Plc.

The deal was struck in February and was cleared by the Centre on August 9.

From in.finance.yahoo.com:

RIL will get $7.2 billion for the stake sale in 21 blocks and could get an additional $1.2 billion as performance payments based on exploration success resulting in the development of commercial deliveries.

Reliance has already received $2 billion from BP. The rest is expected to flow in over a period of time, sources said. Some reports have said that RIL will receive the remaining amount by the end of this month.

An RIL statement said the two companies would also form a 50:50 joint venture for the sourcing and marketing of gas in India. This is expected to accelerate the creation of infrastructure for receiving, transporting and marketing natural gas.

With the completion of the stake sale, the two partners will operate across the gas value chain in India from exploration and production to distribution and marketing.

“The alliance with BP will boost our efforts to realise the true potential of India’s hydrocarbon reserves. The globally renowned expertise of BP and the in-depth domestic experience of Reliance make for a formidable alliance which will deliver unparalleled value for the country in its pursuit of energy security,” said RIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani.

Google Inc. has announced a $12.5 billion cash acquisition of mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. to set its sights on rival, Apple Inc.

The biggest foray of Google into hardware comes weeks after a failed attempt to buy patents from bankrupt Nortel.

From in.news.yahoo.com:

But in buying Motorola, the Internet giant risks alienating the hardware partners that license its free Android software. Google CEO Larry Page sought to calm the jitters by stressing on Monday that Android will remain open to all.

“The danger is that other handset makers feel disenfranchised,” said Nomura Securities global technology specialist Richard Windsor.

“Motorola is the weaker player. This could actually collapse the entire community.”

Shares of Motorola Mobility jumped 59 percent, while Nokia’s stock gained more than 10 percent on speculation the Finnish mobile company is now an acquisition target.

The deal — which took Wall Street by surprise — appears to mark a shift in strategy for a company that had focused on shoring up its Internet search and advertising empire with forays into video and social networking.

The acquisition will give Google an intellectual property library in wireless telephony to wage war on Apple and Microsoft Corp.

Sanford Wallace, known as the “Spam King,” has turned himself in to U.S. authorities after being indicted of masterminding a scheme that sent more than 7 million unsolicited junk messages through servers of Facebook, the popular social networking site.

The Las Vegas man has surrendered to FBI agents for facing 11 counts of fraud, intentional damage to a protected computer, and criminal contempt for violating previous orders to stay off the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace.

From Reuters.com:

Wallace, 43, developed a program that evaded Facebook’s spam filters and posted messages encouraging account holders to visit a website, purportedly from a friend, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

Instead, unsuspecting users were prompted to enter their email addresses and passwords and then were redirected to an affiliate website that earned Wallace “substantial revenue” for directing the traffic, the indictment said.

Wallace’s program scooped up their information, including their lists of friends, and sent spam messages to them.

Accounts of about 500,000 Facebook users were compromised between November 2008 and March 2009, leading to more than 27 million spam messages being sent, federal prosecutors said.

“We will continue to pursue and support both civil and criminal consequences for spammers and others who attempt to harm Facebook or the people who use our service,” Chris Sonderby, a lawyer for the company, said in a statement.

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