NEWS - world

HSBC may quit its London headquarters if the UK government decides to break up big banks, a senior executive says.

At least four people have died and hundreds of homes have been destroyed in a new outbreak of wildfires in Russia.

MANTEO, North Carolina (Reuters) - Hurricane Earl battered North Carolina's coast with rain, winds and waves on Friday and swirled up the U.S. eastern seaboard toward New England and Canada as a weakened but still dangerous storm.

* Earl sideswipes Outer Banks islands, but stays offshore

A team of divers say they have found the world's oldest drinkable beer in a shipwreck off the coast of Finland.

BP says the cost of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill has risen to $8bn - a rise of more than $2bn in the last month alone.

Fear sparks stockpiling of food in Russia as prices soar

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd , the world's No.2 handset maker, expects to sell up to 25 million smartphones this year, exceeding its earlier target, and aims to double shipments next year, media reports said on Friday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - At least 25 suspected drug gang members were killed in an army raid in rural northeastern Mexico on Thursday, the army said in a press release.

Roger Federer overcomes windy conditions to beat Andreas Beck and reach the US Open third round, but seeds Nikolay Davydenko and Maran Cilic crash out.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday offered a rare glimpse into its foreign exchange reserves, confirming that they are overwhelmingly allocated in dollars, while a central banker said the mountain of cash could face depreciation risks.

A human rights lawyer who defended a woman sentenced to death in Iran for adultery enjoyed a tearful reunion with his wife and daughter Thursday after they flew from Tehran to Oslo, Norway.

Top seed Caroline Wozniacki cruises into the third round of the US Open with a blistering 6-0 6-0 win over Chinese Taipei's Kai-Chen Changon.

Judges to deliver verdict more than five years after trial began

Three Pakistan cricket players at the center of an alleged betting scandal were meeting their country's cricket authorities Thursday morning in London.

LONDON (Reuters) - People who take a commonly used class of osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates for more than five years may be doubling their risk of developing cancer of the gullet or esophagus, a British study found on Friday.

LONDON (Reuters) - God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book.

The European Union agrees to reform financial supervision, with new agencies to oversee banks, insurers and financial markets.

God did not create the universe, world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book that aims to banish a divine creator from physics.

Ferrari has been forced to recall its latest supercar after reports that several had burst into flames.