Business news for Mon, 31 Dec 2007 & with word united. 7 news.

Monthly resales of homes in the United States inched up in November, a bright spot in a market where sales were still off 20 per cent from year ago.

Waitrose unveils plans to expand overseas with a deal to open its food stores in the United Arab Emirates.

More than a quarter of businesses in the United Arab Emirates expect to be less profitable in 2008 because of the weakness of the federation's dollar-pegged currency and rising inflation, a magazine survey found.

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is moving closer to a run for president, as he schedules bipartisan meetings with major U.S. political figures and his aides study how to mount independent campaigns in the 50 states, The New York Times reported. The mayor has suggested that he might be a viable candidate if, for example, the Democratic and Republican nominees come from the furthest poles of their respective parties, the Times reported. And Bloomberg has developed his own domestic platform on gun control, the environment and other issues while being briefed on foreign policy by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and by Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, the Times reported.

ATMs have come a long way since the first one in the United States was installed at a Chemical Bank branch at 10 North Village Ave. in Rockville Centre in 1969, with the bank boasting in an ad campaign: "On Sept. 2, our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again!"

Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb remembers a time when "the only things most people in the United Kingdom knew about Denver were the Denver Broncos and the TV show 'Dynasty.'"

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The Chinese government has said it will allow direct election of Hong Kong's governmental leader, called the chief executive, by 2017, according to a media report. The decision, while seen as a concession to growing pro-democracy forces, disappointed advocates who had hoped for a direct election in 2012, when current executive Donald Tsang's term ends, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. The chief executive now is picked by an 800-member assembly that includes dignitaries and legislators appointed by the Beijing government, according to the report. Free election of the chief executive were promised when China took possession of the territory from the United Kingdom in 1997, the Journal said.