American giant Starbucks plans to heavily invest in expansion in China as the local population starts to embrace the coffee culture, the company's Asia Pacific president said Wednesday.

"We see opportunities for many, many more stores in China," John Culver told journalists.

Growth in the Middle East and North Africa took a dive in 2011 because of the Arab Spring protests and resulting political upheaval, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region, stretching from Iran to Mauritania, grew by 3.5 percent last year, down from a healthy 4.9 percent in 2010, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.

U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is close to reaching a $9 billion deal to sell its infant nutrition business to Nestle, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal said Nestle, the Swiss food giant, had apparently beaten out Groupe Danone and Mead Johnson Nutrition, which had considered a joint bid for the business, and that the final deal could be announced next week.

Japanese electronics giant Toshiba said Tuesday it would pay about $850.0 million for IBM's retail solutions unit, with the U.S. firm saying it would create the world's leading point-of-sale company.

The transaction was expected to be completed later in the year, with the move aimed at retailers who "will benefit from accelerated development of new products and solutions", the Japanese firm said in a statement.

Argentina has vowed to take over a 51 percent stake in the country's biggest oil company, YPF, owned by Spain's Repsol, provoking a furious response from Madrid.

The move was announced to applause on Monday at a meeting between President Cristina Kirchner, her cabinet and Argentine governors, and came despite warnings from Madrid and EU officials.

Japan said Tuesday it would pledge $60.0 billion to the International Monetary Fund, saying it was a critical part of the organization’s bid to boost a global firewall against Europe's debt crisis.

Finance Minister Jun Azumi said he hoped the move would spur other nations to kick in funds, which he said were "crucial not only to the Eurozone but also to Asia and Japan if we are to ensure that the crisis is completely over."

U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday rejected the White House-backed "Buffett Rule" aimed at hiking tax rates on millionaires, a move both sides will use as campaign benchmarks ahead of the November election.

President Barack Obama had spent much of the past week pushing the Paying A Fair Share Act, arguing its mandate of a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for people making more than $1 million would help bring a level of fairness to the tax code as working-class Americans struggle with economic hardship.

The World Bank chose Korean-American physician Jim Yong Kim as its next chief Monday in a decision that surprised few but took beating an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. lock on the Bank's presidency.

The Bank picked the 52-year-old U.S. health expert and educator over Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala amid rising pressure from emerging and developing countries for the huge development lender to recruit one of their own for a leader.

Russia's main car maker Lada said on Monday it was pulling one of its classic 1982 models from production after sales shrank for a vehicle that was dated from the moment it was introduced.

"Demand for the 'classic' has dropped a lot. It is time to say goodbye," company spokesman Igor Burenkov said in a statement released to Agence France Presse.

Iran on Monday officially launched a $1-billion first phase of an ambitious project to pump water from the Caspian Sea to a city in its vast and expanding central desert, state media reported.

The initial phase will see a desalination plant and pipes built over the next two years to supply water to the desert city of Semnan, population 200,000, according to officials.