It's Facebook's big day.

(Reuters) - The trustee for MF Global Holdings Inc's brokerage unit said he has received $168 million in cash from JPMorgan Chase & Co , which had been the commodities and futures brokerage firm's main bank prior to its October bankruptcy. James Giddens, the trustee for the MF Global Inc unit, said the money represents proceeds of excess collateral that the largest U.S. bank held when the unit began to liquidate. He said the payment will help his efforts to return money to former MF Global customers, and that he remains in talks with JPMorgan on other claims. An estimated $1. ...

(Reuters) - Solar stocks slumped to fresh lows on Friday as investors continued to punish Chinese solar companies a day after the United States said it would impose new duties on imports from the world's leading solar manufacturer. Suntech Power Holdings was down 4.2 percent, Trina Solar Ltd slid 5 percent and Yingli Green Energy dropped 7.5 percent, extending declines made on Thursday when the U.S. Commerce Department ruled China-based solar companies had violated trade rules and 'dumped' their products in the U.S. at below-market prices. ...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian iron ore miner Vale is confident it will win a dispute over taxes the government claims the company owes on earnings abroad, CEO Murilo Ferreira said on Friday. The government has ordered Vale to pay 30.5 billion reais ($15.19 billion) in tax on profits from its foreign subsidiaries. The company said it already paid the taxes to foreign governments and that Brazil's claim is a form of illegal double taxation. Vale, along with other companies and industry associations, is disputing the back taxes in Brazil's highest court. ...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish banks' bad loans rose in March to their highest in 18 years, underscoring the problems facing the government as it drafts in independent auditors in an attempt to reassure investors it can clean up the sector. The Bank of Spain said bad loans rose to 8.37 percent of banks' outstanding loans, the highest since August 1994 and up from 8.3 percent in February, which was also revised higher. The data was released before Spain names auditors on Monday to assess how bad the losses are likely to get, and how much cash banks will need to rebuild their balance sheets. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - For a company that is dramatically upending business strategies and social relationships around the world, Facebook Inc made a surprisingly modest debut on the Nasdaq on Friday as a sky-high valuation and trading glitches capped the stock's rise. In late trading, Facebook shares were only a few cents above the company's initial public offering price of $38, after opening 11 percent higher, rapidly heading south to touch their initial price and then rebounding by several dollars. ...

It's going to take more than Facebook's initial public offering to push the stock market higher.

Facebook is trading up 8 percent Friday, as investors seek to put a dollar value on the company that turned online social networking into a global cultural phenomenon.

Mark Reuss has arguably the most important job at General Motors.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - World stocks erased the year's gains on Friday as investors fled risky investments for safe-haven assets on concerns about the euro zone's deepening debt woes, while U.S. stocks lost ground after the market debut of social network Facebook failed to lift optimism. Brent crude briefly slipped below $107 per barrel to its lowest in 2012 as the euro zone crisis raised fears of a global slowdown that could dent oil demand, while German borrowing costs hit record lows. World stocks, as measured by the MSCI index , dropped 1. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama pressed Europe on Friday to shift toward a more pro-growth policy and away from austerity to tackle a crisis that threatens to push Greece out of the euro zone and send economic shockwaves worldwide. Setting the tone for a weekend G8 summit, Obama made clear he was aligning himself with the new French president's drive for more economic stimulus in the recession-plagued euro zone instead of emphasizing belt-tightening programs spearheaded by Germany. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday as investors turned cautious before leaders of the Group of Eight nations met about the euro zone debt crisis and after a shaky market debut by Facebook Inc . The S&P 500 dipped below the 1,300 level, seen as a key support point, for the first time since mid-January, before the meeting by the leaders of the world's major industrial economies near Washington. Leaders will try to confront the continuing crisis in the euro zone, including the increasing likelihood of a Greek departure from the bloc. ...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German police said they detained 400 anti-capitalist protesters in Frankfurt on Friday for defying a ban on demonstrations against austerity policies implemented to tackle the intensifying euro zone debt crisis. The demonstration in the German financial capital was part of a four-day-long "Blockupy" protest, due to run until Saturday, against capitalism and austerity measures. "Hungry? Eat a banker," read one banner protesters held up outside the Messeturm skyscraper housing Goldman Sachs' offices. Reuters' Frankfurt office is also in the building. ...

Quebec's provincial government is expected to vote Friday on an emergency law that would shut some universities and impose harsh fines on protesters blocking students from attending classes as the government looks to end weeks of demonstrations against tuition hikes.

(Reuters) - General Motors Co will not advertise in next year's Super Bowl because it is too expensive, the top marketing executive for the U.S. automaker said three days after the company said it was dropping paid ads on Facebook. The 2013 Super Bowl will be broadcast by CBS Corp, which is selling 30-second ads for as much as $4 million. Spots on NBC's broadcast of this year's National Football League championship game, the most heavily watched annual event on U.S. television, cost about $3.5 million per 30-second spot. ...

Chaos in Greek politics and Spanish banking combined this week to underscore just how fragile Europe's economy remains after an eviscerating austerity regime that has spawned unemployment, desperation and misery. And there is no respite in sight, as Germany's finance minister predicted Friday that the crisis could last up to another two years.

(Reuters) - Kraft Foods said on Friday it lowered prices on many of its U.S. coffees, including its flagship brand Maxwell House, citing lower green coffee costs since prices peaked last year, making it the second major U.S. roaster to lower its coffee prices this week. The move comes three days after J.M. Smucker Co. cut the cost of well-known brands Folgers and Dunkin' Donuts by an average of 6 percent. It is the second cut to coffee prices since August 2011 for both companies. ...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is eyeing a stake in Telekom Austria and is believed to have held initial talks with its two biggest investor groups, Austrian magazine Format reported, without citing sources. It said Slim had been in touch with Ronny Pecik - who with partner Naguib Sawiris has built a 20 percent stake in Telekom Austria - and Austrian state holding company OeIAG, Telekom Austria's biggest shareholder with a 28.4 percent stake. ...

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's highest appeals court on Friday upheld a decision that cleared former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a fraud and embezzlement case related to his private broadcaster Mediaset. Milan magistrates who wanted Berlusconi to be indicted lodged an appeal after a judge ruled last October that there was not enough evidence for a trial for the former prime minister. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - A new banking crunch in the euro zone risks another sharp retreat by western parent banks from vulnerable economies in central and eastern Europe, a process that must be slowed to preserve growth, officials from the region said on Friday. Countries backing Europe's development bank for the former communist bloc elected a new president - for the first time from non-euro member Britain - just as fears grow that a Greek exit from the currency could hit emerging Europe's lenders. ...

Boston (Reuters) - Welcome to the club, Jamie Dimon. Embarrassed by a surprise $2 billion trading loss last week, the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co faced heightened criticism at the bank's annual meeting on Tuesday. That included 40 percent backing from shareholders for a resolution to strip Dimon of his chairmanship title, up from 34 percent in 2010. With the spring U.S. ...

French President Francois Hollande said Friday he would carry out his pledge to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by year's end, two years earlier than the U.S. ally once planned. He made the declaration to President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Friday it believes China spent up to $180 billion on its military buildup last year, a far higher figure than acknowledged by Beijing, and it accused "Chinese actors" of being the world's biggest perpetrators of economic espionage. The Pentagon, in its annual report to Congress on China's military, flagged sustained investment last year in advanced missile technologies and cyber warfare capabilities and warned that Chinese spying threatened America's economic security. ...

NEW YORK, May 18 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - A labor-backed investor group critical of JPMorgan Chase & Co's corporate governance said the bank has failed to address concerns over its risk oversight and it will try to rally other shareholders for changes after a $2 billion trading loss. CtW Investment Group, which advises labor pension funds holding what it said are 6 million shares in JPMorgan, has advocated for risk governance changes there for more than a year. ...

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - European officials are working on contingency plans in case Greece bombs out of the euro zone, the EU's trade commissioner said on Friday, while Berlin said it was prepared for all eventualities. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, one of Greece's harsher critics, said market turmoil fuelled by the euro zone debt crisis could last another year or two. "Regarding the crisis of confidence in the euro ... in 12 to 24 months we will see a calming of the financial markets," he said. ...

President Joyce Banda declared Friday she wants to repeal Malawi's laws against homosexual acts, going against a trend in Africa in which gays are being increasingly singled out for prosecution.

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian carmaker Fiat said 5,000 office workers at its Mirafiori factory will be laid off for three days in June and three days in July. Car sales in Italy fell 20 percent in the first three months of the year, and are in their fifth year of decline. "When we sell less, we produce less, and therefore our office staff also works less as a consequence," a spokesman said on Friday. Manufacturing workers at Mirafiori in Turin, where Fiat has its executive headquarters, have already been laid off temporarily. ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad shot two protesters in the capital Damascus on Friday and fired in the air to break up thousands of anti-government demonstrators in the commercial hub of Aleppo, activists said. It was the second consecutive day of street protests in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, where a visit by U.N. ceasefire monitors a day earlier saw demonstrators mass outside the gates of the Aleppo University before security forces drove them off. ...

British officials have given their word: "We won't read your emails."

PARIS (Reuters) - French luxury giant LVMH is struggling to retain its image as exclusive and high-end creators of $10,000 alligator handbags and goat-lined fur coats, while opening enough stores and reaching enough customers to keep profits high. Thus far LVMH has managed the balance well, but it is taking no chances, offering customers increasingly expensive and bespoke services in an effort to retain a high-end mystique around brands in danger of becoming ubiquitous. ...

Syrian security forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse thousands rallying Friday in Aleppo in what activists said was the largest protest yet in a city that has largely remained loyal to President Bashar Assad during the country's 15-month uprising.

Scores of Christian youths in the Philippines chanted "Stop the Lady Gaga concerts" at a rally Friday calling for the pop diva's shows here to be canceled despite assurances from authorities that they won't allow nudity and lewd acts.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday gave a senior government post to a tank factory worker who had offered to come to Moscow with fellow laborers to disperse opposition protests.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission and the European Central Bank are working on scenarios in case Greece has to leave the euro zone, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht has said. Speculation about such planning has been rife, but the comments in a newspaper interview, confirmed by a person close to De Gucht, appear to be the first time an EU official has acknowledged the existence of contingency plans being drawn up in case Greece has to drop out of the currency bloc. ...

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek voters are returning to the establishment parties that negotiated its bailout, a poll showed on Thursday, offering potential salvation for European leaders who say a snap Greek election next month will decide whether it must quit the euro. The poll, the first conducted since talks to form a government collapsed and a new election was called for June 17, showed the conservative New Democracy party in first place, several points ahead of the radical leftist SYRIZA which has pledged to tear up the bailout. ...

MUNICH (Reuters) - Premium carmaker BMW is considering new production sites around the world, with one option being Mexico, a person familiar with the situation told Reuters on Friday. German daily Handelsblatt earlier cited company sources as saying BMW was examining whether to build plants in Mexico and eastern Europe. It said Slovakia's Kosice and Hungary's Miskolc were possible candidates. BMW declined to comment. Earlier this month, it denied reports it plans to build an assembly plant in Slovakia. ...