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China's central bank has provided emergency funding support to commercial banks and will add more cash on Tuesday, as authorities respond to a spike in cash rates ahead of a major holiday, the bank announced on Monday. The move by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) comes after the interest rate that banks charge each other for short-term loans spiked in recent days. Bankers and analysts say the PBOC is attempting to strike a balance by guiding interbank interest rates steadily higher to reduce excess credit growth, while avoiding an acute credit crunch that could spark panic and choke off financing to the real economy. The central bank also appears to be responding to criticism that it failed to communicate effectively with the market during a severe cash crunch that roiled markets in June. Bankers and analysts criticized the PBOC for remaining largely silent as panic gripped the market and rumors swirled about interbank defaults. "The central bank's operations a

Intellectual Ventures is set to square off this week against Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit in the first trial that the multibillion-dollar patent-buying firm has undertaken since it was founded. Privately-held Intellectual Ventures sued Motorola in 2011, claiming the mobile phone maker infringed patents covering a variety of smartphone-related technologies, including Google Play. Motorola has denied the allegations and will now go to trial over three of those patents. Barring any last-minute settlements, jury selection is scheduled to begin on Tuesday at a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. The trial takes place amid an unfolding debate in Congress over patent reform, in which Intellectual Ventures and Google are on opposite sides. Google is backing attempts to curb software patents and make it easier to fight lawsuits, while IV has warned that Congress should not act too rashly to weaken patent owners' rights. IV and other patent aggregators have faced criticis

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, the world's biggest brewer, agreed to buy back South Korea's Oriental Brewery Co Ltd (OB) for $5.8 billion including debt, returning to a large Asian market at a time of strong industry growth across the region. The sale by KKR & Co and Affinity Equity Partners will be Asia's biggest ever for private equity, excluding flotations, and rewards them with returns of more than five times their investment. However AB InBev can claim with Monday's deal to be paying a reasonable price for a business that has grown in value in the five years since it was sold for $1.8 billion. That sale was one of the aggressive divestments forced on InBev after its $52 billion purchase of U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch in 2008. AB InBev shares rose 1.0 percent by 1050 GMT on Monday, making them the strongest performers in a STOXX 600 European food and beverage index, which was up 0.3 percent. Andrew Holland, analyst at Societe Generale, said the price was pretty f

A Taliban suicide bomber killed 13 people in a crowded market near the Pakistani army headquarters on Monday, a day after the Taliban killed 20 soldiers near the largely lawless, tribal region of North Waziristan, police said. The market, a short walk from the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, was in one of the most secure areas of the city. The area was cordoned off by the military immediately after the blast. Two college students wearing blue uniforms were among the dead, their bodies lying near wreckage of a bicycle and pools of blood. Rescue workers struggled to help the wounded. Windows were shattered several hundred meters away. The attacks come after a couple of months of relative calm as the Taliban regrouped following the death of leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike in November. A drone had killed his deputy earlier in the year. After protracted negotiations, Mehsud was replaced by Mullah Fazlullah, a ruthless commander who has made lar

Two men said by Islamist militants to have carried out suicide attacks in south Russia appeared in a video donning explosive belts and warning Vladimir Putin to expect a "present" at the Sochi Winter Olympics from fighters following after them. The video was posted by a group identifying itself as Vilayat Dagestan and appeared on a website often used by militants from Russia's northern Caucasus region where Moscow has been battling insurgency for over a decade. It could not be independently corroborated. The video said the two men, named only as Suleiman and Abdulrakhman and posing also with assault rifles in front of a banner with Arabic writing, were the suicide bombers who attacked the city of Volgograd last month killing at least 34. One, who is bearded, reads a statement in Russian to the wailing of a song in Arabic. The video shows them having what appear to be explosive devices attached to them and one pushing a button that nestles in his hand and appears to

Thai authorities are "very seriously" considering a state of emergency after a weekend of violence in the capital where protesters have been trying for more than two months to bring down the government, the security chief said on Monday. The violence is the latest episode in an eight-year conflict that pits Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment against poorer, mainly rural supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by the military in 2006. "We're prepared to use the emergency decree ... Everyone involved including the police, the military and the government is considering this option very seriously, but has not yet come to an agreement," National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattantabutr told Reuters after meeting Yingluck. "The protesters have said they will close various government offices. So far, their closures have been symbolic, they go to government offices

For Detroit, the road in and out of U.S. bankruptcy court is paved with casino money. An economic lifeline, wagering tax revenue from the city's three casinos is at the heart of the bankruptcy plan submitted by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, and it is behind the surprise rejection of a deal with banks last week that has thrown a wrench into Detroit's route and timing to recovery. Moreover, some $330 million in assistance pledged by a coalition of philanthropic groups, including the Ford Foundation and the Kresge Foundation, will not begin flowing to Detroit until it exits bankruptcy, the head of one group told Reuters. Michigan voters in 1996 approved casino gambling in Detroit, hoping to revitalize the ghost town. Three glitzy resorts eventually opened, helping to spark a burst of energy and bringing as much as $180 million in annual taxes. But the funds have been tied up since 2009 by a separate, disastrous deal that Detroit is trying to reverse. In an effort to reduce i