MANILA, Philippines- Metro Pacific Investments Corp., the local unit of Hong Kong conglomerate First Pacific Co. Ltd., will let go of its majority stake in real estate company Landco Pacific Corp. In a statement to the exchange, MPIC said it received board confirmation of its proposal to dispose of Landco. ...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A busy first full week of 2009 for Wall Street was set to start on a lower note Monday, as investors prepared for December auto sales and reacted to the Obama stimulus plan. At 7:40 a.m. ET, Nasdaq, the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 futures were lower. International trading was much ...

MANILA, Philippines - Ayala-led Globe Telecom, Inc., the country's second largest phone firm, has secured a three-year loan from Germany's Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale. In a statement issued on Monday, Globe Telecom said it signed a $66-million loan facility with a floating interest rate with the German bank's branch in Singapore ...

MANILA, Philippines - Optimism for the new year greeted Philippine financial markets, lifting share prices and increasing the value of the peso, one of the region's underperforming currencies. An extended 12-day holiday in the Philippines—which already claims to celebrate the longest Christmas season—“built up interest and anticipation" among traders, analysts said. ...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A single gene appears to play a crucial role in deadly breast cancers, increasing the chances the cancer will spread and making it resistant to chemotherapy, U.S. researchers said on Monday. They found people with aggressive breast cancers have abnormal genetic alterations in a gene called MTDH, and drugs that block the gene could keep local ...

(BBC NEWS) - Low levels of the stress hormone cortisol marks out children at higher risk of developing chronic fatigue syndrome as adults, experts believe. These children if exposed to trauma, particularly emotional maltreatment and sexual abuse, had a six-fold increased risk for CFS, evidence shows. Cortisol regulates the body's response to stress and a lack may hinder ...

(BBC NEWS) - Females are less physically active at both ends of life than their male counterparts, two studies suggest. Researchers studied activity levels in school children and the over 70s - and in both cases found males tended to be more active. The studies are being presented at the UK Society for Behavioural Medicine annual conference. Liverpool John Moores ...

(BBC NEWS) - Cancer cells cheat death by reversing a process which causes normal cells to commit suicide at the end of their natural life, scientists have shown. They showed cancer cells were able to recover even after exposure to a chemical cocktail which triggers suicide in normal cells. The ability may help cancer cells to block the effect ...

The Milky Way, the Earth's home galaxy, is spinning much faster and has a mass 50 percent larger than previously believed, raising the probability of a collision with another galaxy, according to a report out Monday. A team of international astronomers, with the aid of ten telescopes spread ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Pink iguanas unknown to Charles Darwin during his visits to the Galapagos islands may provide evidence of species divergence far earlier than the English naturalist's famous finches, researchers said Monday. The findings also for the first time describe the black-striped reptiles -- first seen in ...

The Hubble Space Telescope took this image of Saturn, seen titled edge-on, in 1995. The sixth planet from the sun, Saturn, is perhaps best known for its many rings, which consist of billions of particles of ice and rock. But throughout the next several months, if you look ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Seventeen previously unknown species of reptiles and amphibians have been found in the threatened rainforests of eastern Tanzania, Italian and Tanzanian scientists reported on Monday. The haul of new species, which include chameleons, tree frogs and snakes, highlights the rich biodiversity of the East African country's South Nguru Mountains region, they wrote in the journal Acta ...

Here are the comparative ratings between ABS-CBN and GMA-7 programs from January 1 to 4, 2009 based on the overnight ratings of AGB Nielsen Philippines among Mega Manila households: [ad#co-1] January 1, Thursday Non-Primetime: SiS (GMA-7) 8.8%; Boy & Kris (ABS-CBN) 8.5% Rosalinda (GMA-7) 9.2%; Pilipinas, Game KNB? (ABS-CBN) 12.5% Eat Bulaga! (GMA-7) 16.4%; Wowowee (ABS-CBN) 18.3% Saan Darating ang Umaga? (GMA-7) 14.7%; Daisy Siete ...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The change in moderators hasn't hurt the standing of NBC's "Meet the Press." The long-running public affairs program, now moderated by David Gregory, continues to stomp its rivals -- be they ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation" or ...

Watch Kara DioGuardi (in photo) join the opinionated trio of Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, and Simon Cowell as they judge the hopefuls in American Idol Season 8. Q Channel 11 will air the Philippine premiere of the show on January 14 and 15, 2009. American Idol returns to ...

Here are the comparative TV ratings of ABS-CBN and GMA-7programs from December 15 to 21 based on the overnight ratings of AGB Nielsen Philippines among Mega Manila households: [ad#co-1] December 15, Monday Non-Primetime: SiS (GMA-7) 9.4%; Boy & Kris (ABS-CBN) 5.6% Rosalinda (GMA-7) 12.4%; Pilipinas, Game KNB? (ABS-CBN) 13.7% Eat Bulaga! (GMA-7) 20.4%; Wowowee (ABS-CBN) 15.8%...