BARVIKHA (Russia - RUSSIA wants the Group of Eight leading industrial nations to agree to make the rouble a reserve currency and create a new global reserve currency at their July summit, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.

DETROIT - General Motors plans to drop about 1,600 US dealers as it struggles to slash billions of dollars in operating costs and debt ahead of an anticipated bankruptcy filing by the end of the month.

Taken together with a similar announcement by bankrupt Chrysler a day earlier, over 2,300 US auto retailers have been put on notice that they are being eliminated by the two embattled automakers.

NEW YORK - THE largest publicly traded US trucking company will ask for US$1 billion (S$1.5 billion) in aid from the federal bailout fund, as creditors come knocking and business continues to sink, media reports said Friday.

If approved, YRC would become the first trucking company to get help from the bailout fund, officially known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But analysts say the chance of YRC getting any bailout money is slim.