
The son of Suriname's president has been charged by the United States with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Dino Bouterse was allegedly paid millions of dollars to provide a base and weapons for Hezbollah fighters.

The US economy added a better-than-expected 204,000 jobs in October, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department. There had been fears that the 16-day shutdown of government services last month could have hit jobs growth.

United States Tuesday's election results point the way to next year's mid-term elections and showed the emergence of several candidates with the charisma, age and capacity to attract outside voters that could help them have a go at the White House in three years time.

Brazil's Minster of Justice Jose Eduardo Cardozo said on Tuesday that the spying performed by his country's intelligence agency did not violate anyone's privacy rights - unlike the spying committed by the United States.

The United States Department of Treasury says it is taking steps to curtail offshore tax evasion in the Caribbean and other places. The US Treasury Department along with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have issued a notice for foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to comply with information reporting and withholding tax provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

The United Nations said that the United States has pledged not to spy on the world body's communications after a report that the National Security Agency had gained access to the UN video conferencing system.

Tax increases, spending cuts and a stronger economy nearly sliced the United States budget deficit in half in fiscal 2013, reducing it to the lowest level since 2008, Treasury Department data showed. The federal government took in 75.1 billion more than it spent last month, leaving the deficit for the fiscal year, which runs from October to September, at 680 billion, down from 1.09 trillion in 2012.

The Federal Reserve decided on Wednesday to press on with the 85 billion dollars in monthly bond purchases, saying it needs to see more evidence that the economy will continue to improve.

The United States company Stryker Corp., the second-largest seller of orthopaedic devices, will pay more than 13.2 million dollars to settle U.S. regulatory claims that subsidiaries paid bribes in five countries to gain or retain business.

The United States monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders according to classified documents leaked by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, Britain's Guardian newspaper said.