LONDON & DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—-du, UAE’s integrated telecom service provider has announced the launch of its premier Video on Demand service as part of its du TV and du TV+ .

Germany’s economy contracted 5 percent in 2009 amid the global economic downturn, by far its worst performance since World War II, official data showed Wednesday.

With congressional negotiators starting to make decisions on a final health overhaul bill, top Democrats are hoping a White House session with President Barack Obama will narrow differences between the House and Senate.

China’s monetary tightening and disappointing corporate earnings put downward pressure on world stocks on Wednesday, combining to present investors with two of their biggest concerns.

President Barack Obama is trumpeting a new White House estimate that his top economist calls “stunning”: His stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs.

From a TV soap opera advocating savings in the Dominican Republic to banking by motorbike in Ethiopia and India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s most recent grants to promote global development have a decidedly more creative bent.

The economic stimulus program has boosted employment by 1.5 to 2 million jobs, the president’s chief economic adviser said Wednesday.

President Barack Obama plans to announce a new fee Thursday on the country’s biggest financial firms to recover up to $120 billion in taxpayers’ money used to prop up corporations during the economic crisis, a senior administration official said.

The chief executives of Wall Street’s biggest firms, swimming in bonuses but sinking fast in public esteem, will troop to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to face questioning about the global financial crisis.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq 100 up 0.1 to 0.3 percent.