“James Murdoch has decided to stand down from the board with effect from this year’s AGM,” GSK Chairman Christopher Gent said in a statement.

A committee within Britain’s parliament is due to publish a report in the next few weeks that could criticize Murdoch for his handling of the problem which damaged News Corp’s reputation.

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The stronger-than-expected earnings from Goldman Sachs Group Inc followed Tuesday’s disappointing results from Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co last week.

Willingness of the IMF to bolster its crisis-fighting resources gave the financials sector a big push.

“Any time liquidity is added to the financial system, it gives financials a little bit of breathing room, and it will result in higher prices for the banks,” said Kevin Caron, market strategist at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co, in Florham Park, New Jersey.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 96.88 points, or 0.78 percent, to close at 12,578.95. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 14.37 points, or 1.11 percent, to 1,308.04. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 41.63 points, or 1.53 percent, to close at 2,769.71.

Also the central bank governor of Cyprus, Orphanides said in a newspaper column that dropping plans for forcing losses on private sector holders of Greek debt would “help restore trust” in the eurozone and reduce the borrowing costs of other governments in the currency union.

“Reversing the Greek private sector involvement decision would also raise the financing costs on the Greek government, but by restoring trust in the euro zone it would reduce the financing costs of other euro zone governments,” Orphanides wrote in the Financial Times.

European Union and the European Central Bank have criticized a new bill affecting the Hungarian central bank for possibly hurting the bank’s independence.

“We are obviously very concerned that whatever Hungarian legislation is voted by the Hungarian authorities is in compliance with the European requirements,” she added.

“We are looking into it, I know that the European Commission is looking into it, and I certainly hope that the Hungarian authorities will be very keen to have their legislation in compliance with European regulation as well, particularly when it concerns the independence of their central bank,” she said.

Payrolls processing company Intuit said on Wednesday that workers at small businesses saw a rise in their paychecks last month.

The jobs market is showing signs of firming, with the unemployment rate dropping to a 2-1/2-year low of 8.6 percent in November and the first-time applications for state unemployment benefits are hovering near 3-1/2-year lows.

“All of the figures we track show a stronger small business environment in December,” said Susan Woodward, the economist who helped to create the index. “This volatility in the small business indicators parallels, with a slight lag, the increase in volatility in the stock market. All suggest that while a mild recovery is underway, it is fragile,” said Woodward.

Boeing was awarded a $3.48 billion, seven-year contract to develop, test, engineer and manufacture missile defense systems, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

“We believe the government conducted a fair and open competition, making the right decision for the future of the program,” Norm Tew, Boeing vice president and program director of GMD, said in a statement.

A team led by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co had vied with Boeing for expanding and maintaining the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, hub of layered antimissile protection. Boeing partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp for retaining the work.

A spokesman for CMNE said it would include Citigroup’s credit card and consumer loan businesses in the country.

“This fits perfectly in the CMNE group’s strategy. It is clearly based on our pursuit of expansion, notably in northern France and in Belgium, which we consider as our second domestic market,” Eric Charpentier, director general of Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe said in the statement.

The merged company will be set up after the closure of the transaction, expected in the second quarter of 2012.

The deal that may be worth $4 billion is expected to be announced in the next two weeks, the newspaper said without citing any sources.

India’s second biggest mobile operator, the debt-ridden Reliance Communications, has posted nine straight drops in quarterly profit and is trying to sell the sell the tower unit for more than one-and-half years to help bring in much needed funds.

A spokesman for Reliance Communications did not offer any comment.

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