BBC - Some of the world's wealthiest private and corporate investors are reported to be victims of an alleged $50bn fraud by Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff. Mr Madoff is alleged to have confessed to a huge Ponzi scheme (pyramid fraud). Reports say the main owner of the New York Mets baseball...

BBC - Bank of America has said it plans to cut between 30,000 and 35,000 jobs over three years following the completion of its takeover of Merrill Lynch. The reduction could affect about 11% of the combined firms' 308,000 workforce. Bank of America said the move would reflect both post-merger...

NYT - The Sony Corporation, the Japanese consumer electronics giant, said on Tuesday that it would eliminate 8,000 jobs and rein in planned investment in reaction to the global economic slowdown. Sony, which had already announced scattered cost-savings measures, blamed rapid deterioration in the...

NYT - Bank of America said Tuesday that it hoped to provide a limited amount of credit to allow a closed window and door factory here to pay money owed to workers who have been peacefully occupying the plant for five days to protest losing their jobs. “We’re trying to make that happen,” a bank...

BBC - US chemical firm Dow Chemical will cut 5,000 jobs and close 20 plants in an attempt to cut costs because of the global economic downturn. Dow, one of the world's biggest chemical makers, hopes to make annual savings of $700m (£473m) by 2010. "We must adjust ourselves to the severity of this...

BBC - US employers axed 533,000 jobs in November, the biggest monthly cut since 1974, the US Labor Department said. In a dramatic indication of the worsening economic situation, the US jobless rate rose to a 15-year high of 6.7% from 6.5% in October. Since these latest numbers were compiled,...