This is expected to continue till the prices of cotton remain high.

The company informed, “As a result of further rises in the price of cotton, retail price rises are likely to be at the top end of our previously stated 5% to 8% range for the first quarter of next year.”

“The longevity of what appears to be a speculative bubble in cotton prices will be critical in determining prices for the second quarter,” it added further.

The company’s sales figures for the third quarter to October 30 show that like-for-like sales for Next Retail have fallen by 3.3%. This is even worse than its 1.5% fall during the first half.

However, the overall sales at the group have increased by 2.2%. There has also been 7.9% rise in sales in its online arm, Next Directory. The company is still expecting to meet its annual profits estimate of £535 million to £560 million.

The company has been able to keep up with other Japanese firms that also reported strong quarterly results recently.

Hitachi believes that in spite of strong yen value, the company is having better sales of its products due to “global recovery in demand”.

Encouraged by improved results during the quarter in the three months to September, the company has raised its net profit outlook for fiscal year ending March 2011 to 200 billion yen.

The electronics firm manufactures a number of products like computer chips, car parts, household electronic devices, high speed trains, nuclear reactors and so on.

Meanwhile, Hitachi Ltd has announced that it preparing for a US listing of its hard disk drive unit, either on either on the New York Stock Exchange or the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (Nasdaq). The deal is expected to be up to $ 1 billion.

Although the second, third, fourth and fifth installments of this series about psycho killer Jigsaw and his torture game legacy saw huge financial success with their opening weekends grossing $30 million, the opening of the sixth installment that was released last year was a letdown ($10 million less than the latest one).

David Spitz, Head of Distribution for Lionsgate Entertainment told, “Last year, a lot of people said, ‘Ok, that’s it. Put a fork in it, it’s done.’”

“The following week, we were all disappointed and thought what can we do to reinvigorate the franchise? So we shot the movie in 3D and said this is the final chapter,” he informed.

Saw 3D beat last weekend’s top movie, “Paranormal Activity 2″, another horror flick that had opened with $40.7 million. Action comedy “Red” featuring starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Helen Mirren finished third with $10.8 million. Paramount’s “Jackass 3D”, another franchise in 3D slipped from second to fourth spot.

The increase in Saw 3D’s revenue can also be attributed to the fact that 3D screenings are priced at a premium rate as compared to their 2D counterparts.

Earlier this month, Fonterra, world’s largest dairy exporter, was also honored at the 2010 Governor of Victoria Export Awards in the agricultural exporter category.

The company’s Australia Managing Director, Simon Bromell observed, “The business has made a number of strategic investments, such as our recent $A40 million upgrade of our Darnum Park manufacturing facility which now supplies infant formula into the East Asian market.”

He revealed that the Fonterra Ingredients collected about 20 per cent of Australia’s total milk production each year and exported over 100,000 tonnes dairy products to key markets in Asia and the Middle East.

“This milk powder plant in Gippsland, Victoria, recovers and recycles water through the manufacturing process, cleaning up water extracted from the milk to save about 550,000 liters water a day,” Bromell informed.

He also mentioned that in spite of challenging farming conditions during recent seasons, the dairy processing giant’s over 1,000 workforce in Australia as well as the farmer suppliers did a commendable work by continuing to supply high quality raw milk.

Bromell hopes that the company makes “the most of opportunities to continue to grow dairy exports in coming years.”

It is believed that the producers of the film are offering the role to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star after pursuing Tom Hardy.

The producers had not approached Depp for the movie earlier because of his involvement in other projects like “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, Kathryn Bigelow’s “Triple Frontier”, Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” etc.

Moreover, it is believed that the 47-year old actor does not prefer repeating similar roles in different movies. He already played the role of Mad Hatter in the film “Alice in Wonderland” that released this year itself.

So far, the speculation has not been confirmed by the Universal Pictures or Depp’s representative. The movie is expected to release in US on December 21, 2012. Its shooting shall start around January next year.

This has been the biggest monthly drop in German retail sales since March 2008.

Experts find this sharp fall in retail sales surprising because German economy is continuing to grow. In addition, the country’s level of unemployment has also declined below 3 million.

Carsten Brzeski, Ing Financial Markets Senior Economist found the retail sales figures “clearly disappointing “, but also mentioned that the German retail sales figures fluctuate and are often revised.

Nonetheless, the sales were up 0.4% in real terms on annual basis. Statistics Office data indicates that on an annualized basis, there has been a growth of 3.1% in non food sales (non including automobile or petrol sales) but a fall of 3.5% in sales of tobacco, food and drink.

Russia believes that divulging complete information in the form that has way too many questions can put Russian people filling the form at a risk of prosecution at home.

According to Union of Russian Travel Agencies, complying with these toughening visa rules associated with the application form can be seen as violation of state laws on military secrets, on the part of Russians.

Andrey Nesterenko, Foreign Ministry spokesperson for Russia considers the complicated form as “excessive”. Russia is planning to raise this issue in the bilateral Russian-Canadian Consultations on consular and visa issues due in November.

Nesterenko observed that in case the discussion fails, there is a possibility that Russia could come up with a similar form for Canadians in the future.

Analysts had been expecting it to be around 55 cents per share.

According to the company’s General Manager of Investors Relations, Bill Koefoed, recent product launches also contributed in increasing the net profit for the quarter.

However, this jump in profit is also because of the inclusion of previous deferred revenue associated with the launch of Windows 7 operating system. The company’s net profit was $3.6 billion a year back.

The software giant has posted a record first-quarter revenue of $16.20 billion for the quarter ended September 30, indicating a 25% rise. Revenue at Window’s division jumped 66% to $4.8 billion and increased by 16% reaching $5.1 billion in case of Office and other business software division.

Microsoft’s Chief Finance Officer, Peter Klein informed, “This was an exceptional quarter, combining solid enterprise growth and continued strong consumer demand for Office 2010, Windows 7 and Xbox 360 consoles and games.”

On being asked about the adverse impact of Apple’s popular iPad tablet device on the sales of computers operating on Windows, he replied, We haven’t seen that at all.” He added, “Analysts who have done research on it, largely think this (the tablet market) is additive to PC markets as opposed to instead of PCs.”

Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft, Kevin Turner observed, “Customer demand and excitement for our cloud and commercial online services continue to grow as demonstrated by major new customer wins this quarter for Windows Azure and by the significant customer interest in our recently announced Office 365 service.”

Encouraged by this growth, the company has increased its operating expense guidance for the year ending June 30, 2011 from $26.9 billion to $27.3 billion.

The actress revealed this news along with husband Nick Cannon on NBC’s Today Show (as part of sneak peak at Access Hollywood interview) by saying, “Yes, we are pregnant, this is true!”

The 41-year old superstar explained that she had been reluctant to disclose this information in public because she had had a miscarriage two years back.

“It’s been a long journey. It’s been tough because I’ve been trying to hold on to a shred of privacy, and that is not easy.” she told. “At this point, there is no choice. I either talk or I hibernate.”

Excited about Carey’s pregnancy, America’s Got Talent host Cannon who married Carey in the Bahamas in 2008 said, “We’ve had names picked out from the first day we met and we want to stay true to that.”

The couple told the presenter of the show that they were expecting the baby in the next spring. They have decided not to find out the gender of the baby before his/her birth.

Speculations about Carey’s pregnancy had started when, on US chat show The View, British Actress Thandie Newton, on being asked about her taking over Mariah Carey’s part in the movie For Colored Girls, accidentally revealed, “I think she is pregnant.”