U.S. President Barack Obama urged Democrats and Republicans Saturday to take a "balanced approach" to cutting deficit before a new round of key talks aimed at averting a debt default.

Obama said the two parties must address challenges like the solvency of Medicare, a government-run health insurance program for seniors and also insisted on closing tax loopholes and deductions for the wealthiest Americans.

A Milan court ordered Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest company Saturday to pay rival media group CIR 560 million euros after it bribed a judge to approve a company takeover.

The Milan appeals court reduced by a quarter the original 750-million-Euro ($1-billion) damages claim that a civil court had ordered the holding company to pay in October 2009.

The U.S. micro-blogging website Twitter is gaining value and is now worth an estimated $8 billion, the New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper, citing two people briefed on the matter, said the popular website is in the process of raising $400 million in a deal that has provided the latest estimation of its value.

Pfizer says it may sell its animal health and nutrition business in the next two years so it can focus on expanding its low-cost pharmaceuticals unit.

Pfizer says it will also consider transactions including spinoffs and may pursue different strategies for each business. It said any transactions could take one to two years to complete.

Exports from Germany, Europe's biggest economy, bounced back in May, helping the country's trade surplus to widen, official figures showed Friday.

Germany exported goods and services worth €92.1 billion ($132 billion) in May, the Federal Statistical Office said. That was up 4.3 percent from the previous month and 19.9 percent in year-on-year terms.

The leading provider of service for Smartphones in the United States on Thursday stopped offering new customers "all-you-can-eat" data plans.

Verizon Wireless joined AT&T and T-Mobile USA in a shift away from plans that allow Smartphone or tablet computer users to stream unlimited amounts of digital data for fixed prices.

The Swedish government on Wednesday gave the green light for troubled automaker Saab to sell its real estate and lease it back, handing it the last approval needed to sell its plant and get access to much needed cash.

Saab welcomed the deal and said in a statement it planned to restart its production, which has been repeatedly stalled since April and last stopped on June 8, on August 9.

Private creditors and international banks were meeting in Rome on Thursday to discuss the role of the private sector in Greece's second debt bailout, an Italian Treasury source said.

The meeting was being held in order "to exchange points of view on the participation of private creditors," a source within the Treasury told Agence France Presse.

Up to 140,000 Philippine workers could lose their jobs in Saudi Arabia due to a domestic helper ban and a program to compel firms to employ more locals, the Filipino labor minister said Thursday.

Between 20,000-50,000 Filipino domestic workers in the kingdom could be hit by Saudi Arabia's decision announced last month to stop granting work permits to Philippine and Indonesian maids, Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said.

World oil prices fell on Wednesday when markets were spooked by a ratings downgrade to Portugal which suggested that the Eurozone debt crisis was worsening.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in August, dipped four cents to $96.85 a barrel.