In the Asian-Pacific region, McDonald's same-store sales jumped 4.1%. Australia had continued strong performance, bolstered by positive calendar shift.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast-food giant said global systemwide sales for its restaurants jumped 6.1% in July.

McDonald's same-store sales growth in Europe was the strongest in almost six months.

Nortel Networks Corp. (NT: chart), the Canadian telecommunications-equipment maker struggling to recover from an accounting scandal, reported a higher second-quarter profit as revenue rose 10%, bolstered by surging sales of the company’s enterprise and wireless gear. Besides its accounting problems, Nortel has been suffering tight competition in the telecom-equipment industry.

Nortel Networks Corp., one of the world's largest suppliers of telecommunications equipment, posted higher 2Q earnings Monday, bolstered by surging sales of the company’s enterprise and wireless gear.

Nortel, which still suffers from regulatory and criminal probes from an accounting scandal, posted net earnings of $45 million, or 1 cent a share, in the quarter ending June 30, up vs. earnings of $16 million, or zero per share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue rose 10% to $2.86 billion from $2.59 billion.

Analysts had expected earnings of 1 cent per share before special items and revenue of $2.69 billion.

According to the company, 2Q 2005 net earnings included restructuring charges of $90 million and $39 million in costs related to the sale of businesses and assets.

The figures also included adjustments connected with earlier periods which cut net earnings by about $40 million, or 1 cent per share in the quarter.

Nortel shares jumped 6.8% to $2.83 on the Inet electronic brokerage before the market opened, up from a close of $2.65 on the NYSE on Friday.

Gross margin was 43% of revenue in 2Q, meeting Nortel's projected range of 40% to 44%, but above the company’s prior forecast for the low-end of that range.

For 2005, the company still sees revenue to grow by around 10%. It sees gross margin around 40 to 44% of revenue and operating expenses at about 35% of revenue by the end of the year.

UFJ Holdings Inc. swung to profit for the 1Q Monday as it moved forward on eliminating bad debts.

Tokyo-based UFJ, a major Japanese financial group set to merge with another bank to create the world's biggest bank, reported a group profit of 163.5 billion yen ($1.47 billion) in the April-June quarter, vs. a 91.6 billion loss a year ago. Revenue totaled 512.4 billion yen, down 8% vs. 557.3 billion yen.

Japan's fourth-largest bank maintained its earlier forecast to post a group profit of 140 billion yen.

UFJ said it had made good progress on eliminating its bad debts, which now amount to 1.47 trillion yen, down 16% vs. the same quarter last year.

UFJ’s stock which have gained back about a fifth of their value over the past year, closed up 0.2% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange at 581,000 yen shortly before the earnings release.

Standard Chartered PLC said Monday its first-half net profit climbed 28% on strong revenue growth and profit from newly acquired Korea First Bank.

The bank said that its net profit jumped to $971 million vs. $756 million in the first half of last year. Pretax profit rose to $1.33 billion vs. $1.11 billion. Standard Chartered bought Korea First Bank, South Korea's seventh-largest lender, for $3.3 billion in January.

The bank posted revenue increase - without the contribution from Korea First Bank - of 14%, which beat cost growth of 12%. Interest income rose 43% to $3.68 billion vs. $2.57 billion.

Last year, Standard Chartered's full-year net profit gained 44% to $1.48 billion on an economic recovery in its largest market Hong Kongi.