New York  - Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise-line operator, Tuesday reported first-quarter profits after cutting costs and offering heavy discounts.

The Miami-based Carnival said its net income was 260 million dollars, up from 236 million dollars a year earlier. Sales dropped 9.1 per cent to 2.86 billion dollars in the three months ending February 28.

"Considering the economic climate, achieving higher quarterly net income is quite remarkable," Carnival CEO Micky Arison said in a statement.

New York, Mar. 24: A bailed out J P Morgan Chase has announced plans to spend 120 million dollars on buying two luxury corporate jets similar to the Gulfstream V model.

In the latest example of stunning tone deafness among the corporate swells, high-flying financiers will use these plush new luxury jets, and the company is also building a fancy new hangar to house them.

ABC News reports that the firm is forking out a monumental 138 million dollars for the two projects.

Hancock (New York), Mar. 24 : If you didn''t know where to look, you''d probably never find Islamberg, a private Muslim community in the woods of the western Catskills, 150 miles northwest of New York City.

This town, sitting on a quiet dirt road past a gate marked with No Trespassing signs, is home to an estimated 100 residents.

Sheikh Syed Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, a Pakistani cleric who purchased a 70-acre plot and invited followers, founded Islamberg in 1980. It consists mostly Muslim converts.

New York  - Canadian oil companies Suncor Energy Inc and Petro-Canada Monday announced a merger worth about 15.4 billion US dollars that would create the country's largest energy company and provide protection against any foreign buyouts.

Suncor is the world's second-largest oil-sands producer, and Petro-Canada is the country's second-largest refiner. The steep decline in global oil prices last year made the merger inevitable.

Suncor reported its first quarterly loss in its history in January.

New York  - US stocks staged the biggest rally since November after the US government unveiled the details of a long-awaited plan to take toxic mortgage assets off the balance sheets of US banks.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put forward a 1-trillion- dollar public-private partnership that the administration hopes will go a long way to stabilize the crumbling US financial system.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its fifth-largest points gain in history, and US financial firms gained 18 per cent on the announcement.

New York  - The meeting of the world's 20 leading economies in London on April 2 has the potential of making profound changes in the global economy that is suffering a deep recession, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

"The stakes at the London summit are large," Ban told the UN General Assembly, which convened to discuss the world economic downturn, triggered initially by a US financial crisis and which threatens funding for UN programmes.