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

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures rose modestly on Monday, boosted by continued concerns on political tensions in Pakistan and tight supplies in the U.S. Crude futures for February delivery gained 60 cents, or 0.6%, to $96.6 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose to an intraday high of $96.78 earlier in electronic trading. "The geopolitical upheaval triggered by the [former Pakistani prime minister Benazir] Bhutto assassination could get stirred up again ahead of the January 8th elections," said Edward Meir, an analyst at futures brokerage MF Global, in a research note.

ABI Research has bulked up its interactive media division, adding new senior analysts to tackle multichannel video and digital media storage, protection and management research.

Paris-based Publicis Groupe led a tumble in European media stocks this morning, following a negative report on the sector from a big Wall Street securities firm. Shares of Publicis were off 1.2% to $37.89, following the release of the report from Citigroup's equity research team.

CHINA'S Internet search firm Baidu.com said yesterday that its chief financial officer, Shawn Wang, died in an accident while on vacation in China. Wang, who joined Baidu in 2004 and helped the company successfully list on the Nasdaq stock market in 2005, died on December 27 during a Christmas-New Year holiday. Company officials declined to give further details. The company said it plans to replace him but also gave no further details. "Under Wang's leadership, this year Baidu became one of the four biggest firms in the US by stock transaction volume and the first Chinese company to join the Nasdaq 100 index," Baidu chairman and CEO Robin Li said in an e-mail to employees. "Besides his contribution to financial affairs, he also led the company's legal and human resources departments to fruitful achievements," Li said. Baidu had a 60.5-percent share of China's search engine market in the third quarter, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys

A new market-based experiment aims to tackle the lack of research on vaccines needed primarily by poor countries and the long distribution time. The plan, called the advance market commitment, is promising but the theory behind it has serious holes in it.

Imagine frozen kidney cells, thawed on the battlefield, that can serve as a temporary filter to clean the blood of a soldier whose organs were crushed in a vehicle rollover. Or futuristic armor applied to a military vehicle so it can withstand roadside bombs. Solar panels that roll up like your kitchen aluminum foil for use in space.

The credit crunch sparked a 58 per cent rise this year in class-action lawsuits filed by American shareholders against companies and their directors, research shows.