International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde was due in Paris on Saturday for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy on a crunch weekend for the European debt crisis.

After his talks with Lagarde, Sarkozy was due to head to Berlin on Sunday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, as eurozone leaders cobble together a plan to recapitalize banks overexposed to risky sovereign debt.

Disney CEO Robert Iger will remain in his job through March 2015 and then serve as executive chairman for another 15 months to help break in a new chief executive, the company said Friday.

The definite end to what will be a decade-long tenure suggests the eventual promotion of one of his two closest lieutenants, either Jay Rasulo, 55, the chief financial officer, or Tom Staggs, 50, chairman of the parks division.

Chinese automaker JAC Motors said Friday it will invest $500 million to build a factory in Brazil's northeastern Bahia state, its first outside China.

The factory, slated to open in 2014, will have the capacity to produce 100,000 units, Jianghuai Automobile Co. said in a statement. A total of 3,500 jobs are expected to be created.

U.S. officials and business leaders stressed the need Friday to encourage China, India, Brazil and other countries to increase their investments in the United States as a means to create U.S. jobs.

"In 2009 the United States attracted 12 percent of total global investment, down from 25 percent over a decade ago," Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank told President Barack Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Europe's leaders scrambled Friday to reassure investors the continent's banks were safe, stepping up calls for fresh cash injections as Paris played down reported differences with Germany over the crisis.

While EU leaders agree on the need for action to shore up over-exposed banks, a division of opinion reportedly emerged between France and Germany on how to proceed, two days before their leaders are due to meet in Berlin.

Russia has granted Venezuela a new $4-billion line of credit for "military and technical cooperation," the South American nation's leader Hugo Chavez said.

The two countries also signed accords late Thursday to accelerate oil production in Colombia's Orinoco belt and explore for offshore gas.

Thousands of anti-corporate demonstrators backed for the first time in large numbers by trade unions poured into New York's financial district Wednesday, raising the stakes in a more than two-week long street revolt.

More than 5,000 people crammed into Foley Square in lower Manhattan, where the city's courts and government buildings are located, before marching toward Wall Street. Union officials estimated the number at 8,000 to 12,000 and it was clearly the biggest protest yet for the fledgling movement.

Yahoo! shares surged more than 10 percent Wednesday driven by speculation that Microsoft would lodge a new bid for the web giant more than three years after being spurned.

Neither side was commenting on the speculation, but Microsoft's shares also took a jump as analysts saying the companies' current search-related tie-up made a Microsoft buyout logical.

U.S. President Barack Obama warned Thursday Europe must "act fast" on a debt crisis threatening the fragile U.S. recovery and accused China of gaming the global currency and trading systems.

In a White House news conference, Obama also said Republicans must pass his $447 billion dollar jobs bill as insurance against a double dip recession and warned Pakistan was hedging its bets by maintaining ties with extremists.

The BBC said Thursday it will cut around 2,000 jobs in the most far-reaching change in its history as the world's largest public broadcaster falls prey to government austerity measures.

Director General Mark Thompson told staff that the corporation plans annual savings of £670 million pounds over five years but no services would be completely cut.