Ford Motor Co's (NYS:F) Australian unit announced plans on Tuesday to cut up to 440 jobs, or about 15 percent of its workforce, and slash production by almost 30 percent to cope with a slide in popularity of its top model, the Falcon. Australian car manufacturers have enjoyed solid sales over the past year despite a subdued economy, although Ford's sales have lagged, according to industry figures. The Ford Falcon was once Australia's top-selling vehicle but now barely makes it into the top-20, hurt by a trend away from large-engine sedans in favor of small cars and sport utility...

The National Futures Association said it will conduct a review of its audit division as it seeks to answer fierce criticism that it missed two decades of fraud at failed Iowa brokerage Peregrine Financial Group. Just hours after a former customer of Peregrine Financial called for a U.S. congressional investigation of the NFA, the industry group said it was retaining outside law firm Jenner and Block to review its general practices and their execution in the case of PFGBest, as Peregrine is widely known. Also responding to the fallout, the CME Group, responsible for regulating 45 of...

Bank of England governor Mervyn King is expected to be quizzed by lawmakers over his role in the resignation of Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond in an interest rate scandal that is rocking London's reputation as a banking centre. The Libor affair is not officially on the agenda of Tuesday's 0900 GMT hearing of parliament's Treasury Select Committee, which is scheduled to question King, his deputy Paul Tucker, top regulator Adair Turner and other officials about the BoE's Financial Stability Report and schemes to get credit flowing. But after marathon sessions with former senior...

Europe's debt markets are not functioning properly due to the slow and complicated decision-making process in the euro zone, Spain's Economy Minister was quoted as saying in an interview with Spanish daily La Vanguardia. "There are no (debt) operations between nations in the monetary union and practically the only demand for Italian debt comes from Italians," Luis de Guindos said. "A similar thing is happening in France and Spain." The minister added that investors outside the euro zone had no confidence in the euro. "This renationalization of the capital markets is very...

A "pervasively polluted" culture at HSBC Holdings Plc allowed the bank to act as financier to clients seeking to route shadowy funds from the world's most dangerous and secretive corners, including Mexico, Iran, the Cayman Islands, Saudi Arabia and Syria, according to a scathing U.S. Senate report issued on Monday. While the big British bank's problems have been known for nearly a decade, the Senate probe detailed just how sweeping the problems have been, both at the bank and at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a top U.S. bank regulator which the report said failed to...

Yahoo Inc picked Google Inc's Marissa Mayer to become its new CEO, turning to an engineer with established Silicon Valley credentials to turn around the struggling former Internet powerhouse. Mayer, 37, edged out front-runner and acting Chief Executive Ross Levinsohn to become Yahoo's third CEO in a year. She hopes to stem losses to Google and Facebook Inc - which her high-profile predecessors failed to do. Her hiring signaled the Internet company is likely to renew its focus on Web technology and products rather than beefing up online content. Mayer, Google's 20th employee and...

Asian shares surged and the euro recovered on Tuesday as investors covered short positions and hunted for bargains while awaiting U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's view on the U.S. economy expected later in the day. European stocks were likely to rise, tracking Asia and a 0.5 percent increase in U.S. stock futures that pointed to a stronger start in Wall Street. Financial spreadbetters called the main indexes in London (.FTSE), Paris (.FHCI) and Frankfurt (.GDAXI) to open up as much as 0.6 percent. (.EU) (.L) (.N) Weak U.S. retail sales and a lower International Monetary...

LONDON (Reuters) - Commodities trader Glencore , scrambling to save its $26 billion bid for miner Xstrata , will need to sweeten the terms or put its long-desired deal at risk after key shareholder Qatar threatened to oppose the offer. Qatar, which remained silent on its intentions for months as it built the second-largest stake in Xstrata, said in a surprise statement on Tuesday that it supported the principle of the deal but demanded an improvement in terms from 2.8 new Glencore shares for every Xstrata share to 3.25. The 11th-hour rebuff will make it very difficult for...