(Reuters) - Top U.S. retailers from Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) to Toys R Us saw longer lines of shoppers outside stores on Black Friday, raising hopes for an improved holiday selling season, their chief executives said. "Judging from the excitement at Toys R Us at 10 p.m. (Thursday) and throughout the evening, the shopper is back," Toys R Us Chief Executive Jerry Storch told Reuters on Black Friday, the kick-off to the biggest selling season of the year.

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(Reuters) - Russia may be able to join the World Trade Organization as soon as next year, completing over a decade and a half of membership negotiations, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday. "Regarding our possible accession to the WTO in 2011, I think this is possible, and we would like this to happen," he said at a joint press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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(Reuters) - U.S. stock indexes fell about 1 percent at the open on Friday in a shortened post-holiday session as investors fled from risk on worries that euro zone debt problems may continue to spread. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI dropped 114.51 points, or 1.02 percent, to 11,072.77. The Standard & Poor's 500 .SPX declined 10.86 points, or 0.91 percent, at 1,187.49. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC lost 20.13 points, or 0.79 percent, at 2,522.99.

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(Reuters) - Early-bird bargain-hunters scooped up "Black Friday" deals on everything from TVs to toys across the United States, but many said discounts were not as deep as those offered last year. As retailers look for the best holiday season in three years, deals that are less generous could bode well for their margins. Early anecdotal indications were that people were buying, not just looking.

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(Reuters) - European officials denied "absolutely false" reports Portugal was under pressure to seek a bailout and Spain ruled out on Friday needing help to manage its finances, despite fears of a spreading euro debt crisis. The Financial Times Deutschland quoted unidentified sources as saying some euro zone states wanted Lisbon to seek aid in order to avoid Spain, the fifth largest EU economy, from having to follow suit.

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(Reuters) - Airbus and Boeing have begun sounding out suppliers on their ability to cope with further production increases of their most popular jets, taking combined output well above 80 a month within four to five years. Three senior industry sources told Reuters consultations had started on a historic upswing which could see Airbus producing as many as 44 A320 single-aisle planes by 2014 or 2015 and its rival simultaneously rising to as many as 42 737s a month.

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(Reuters) - Relations have turned icy between the CEOs of Roche and Novartis as Switzerland's top two drug executives defend their very different strategies to making money in a tough healthcare market. The climate became frostier last week when Roche's Severin Schwan announced a cost-saving program on the same day that Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez presented his diversification strategy at the group's long-awaited investor day in London.

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(Reuters) - The final draft of Iraq's multibillion-dollar deal with Royal Dutch Shell to capture flared gas at southern oilfields will be completed within 10 days, a senior Iraqi oil official said on Friday. The $12 billion deal, which includes Japan's Mitsubishi, involves capturing associated natural gas produced at fields near the oil hub of Basra, including Rumaila.

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(Reuters) - Citigroup (C.N) is planning to open a small network of flagship bank branches in key Western European cities next year to re-focus its retail offer on affluent "global citizens," the Financial Times said on Friday. The bank, whose operations in the UK, Spain, Greece and Belgium are being wound down under terms of the U.S. government bail-out, would be seeking to slim down and target major cities in France, Britain and Germany, the FT said.

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(Reuters) - Genzyme (GENZ.O), resisting a hostile bid from Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA), is open to a deal that links its value to the success of key drug Campath, the U.S. biotech's chief executive was quoted as saying. But it was not up to Genzyme to suggest that to the French drugmaker, which has launched a $18.5 billion takeover offer for Genzyme, Chief Executive Henri Termeer was quoted as saying in French newspaper Le Figaro.

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