New York - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Monday at the United Nations in New York in the face of protests, amid the US presidential election fray.

Jewish-American groups held a rally Monday morning outside UN headquarters in New York and planned another major demonstration on Tuesday, when Ahmadinejad is to give his formal address to the General Assembly.

The rally was catapulted into the US political limelight last week after it emerged that Sarah Palin, vice presidential running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, was scheduled to speak.

San Francisco - Software giant Microsoft on Monday announced that it planned to buy back up to 40 billion dollars in stock by 2013.

The company also raised its dividend by 18 per cent to 13 cents a share, sending its stock up some 5 per cent in early trading on Wall Street.

"These announcements illustrate our confidence in the long-term growth of the company and our commitment to returning capital to our shareholders," said Chris Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer.

Country’s national carrier Air India has signed a financing arrangement worth $550 million with the US Exim Bank, to finance the purchase of three Boeing 777 and five Boeing 737-800 aircrafts.

Under the deal, the bank would give guarantee for the amount, which would be provided by Standard Chartered Bank to the national carrier to buy aircrafts.

New York - Not a single country in Africa is on track to meet the United Nations' poverty goals by 2015, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday while issuing a plea for more foreign aid.

Ban, opening a one-day conference on African development at UN headquarters, said about 72 billion dollars per year was needed for Africa to reach the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of poverty-reduction targets first set up eight years ago.

Washington - US stock markets Monday opened slightly down after a week of turmoil as investors await the outcome of the US government's proposed
700-billion-dollar government bailout of bad mortgage debt that would be an unprecedented intervention in capital markets.

At the opening bell, the Dow Jones index of blue chips was down more than 50 points, or about half a percent, at 11,337. The broad- based S&P 500 was also down more than half a percent, or 5 points, to 1,249.

Washington - The decision by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs - the last two major US investment banks still on their feet - to become bank holding companies signals the end of high-wire finance on Wall Street.

After a year of turmoil in the financial industry that climaxed last week with bankruptcies and government takeovers, the two companies agreed to submit themselves to far tighter regulations by applying for the new status.

The US central bank late Sunday accepted the two companies' applications, pending a five-day antitrust waiting period.