Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
APEC ministers to reject fiscal tightening: draft
SINGAPORE (AFP) –
APEC finance ministers will reject any premature moves towards fiscal tightening and advocate a steady retreat from stimulus measures, according to a draft communique obtained by AFP Tuesday.
“We agree that the solution is not to rush to fiscal tightening, especially while credit markets are still recovering,” the draft said.
“Careful planning and timing withdrawal of extraordinary stimulus measures will help to avoid a double-dip recession.”
Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, including the United States and China, will meet in Singapore on November 14-15 to discuss global economic recovery, environmental issues and free trade.
The draft finance ministers’ statement is currently being refined by senior officials, ahead of the ministerial meeting on Thursday.
“While we have transited from a crisis to a more …
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Rio Tinto wants to work with Chinalco: chief
SYDNEY (AFP) –
Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto said Tuesday it was interested in collaborating with Chinalco, months after rejecting a massive cash injection from the state-owned Chinese firm.
Rio chief executive Tom Albanese also said the company hoped for a “timely and transparent resolution” of the case against top executive Stern Hu, who was arrested weeks after the 19.5 billion US dollar tie-up collapsed.
“We are still keen to work with Chinalco in future on projects of mutual benefit,” Albanese told a conference in Perth.
“It is too early to say what these might be but I am encouraged that we have had some recent engagement,” he added.
“We want the underlying common interests between Rio Tinto and China to once again drive us towards ever-deepening co-operation.”
Rio snubbed Chinalco’s offer in favour of a joint venture in Western Australia with bitter r…
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Values influence floral purchases
TAIPEI, Taiwan, Nov. 9 (UPI) –
People identified as heavy users
of flowers rated emotion conditioning
as more important than showing care to others,
researchers in Taiwan found.
Li-Chun Huang from National Taiwan University and Tzu-Fang Yeh from Da-Yeh University headed a research project that evaluated the differences in floral consumption values across consumer groups.
A consumer survey was conducted in cities and rural areas in Taiwan in 2006 where 677 participants were surveyed to determine if they were flower users
and non-users.
Values that indicate showing care to others include emotion conditioning and sensory hedonics,
a phenomenon in which consumers perceive the value of flowers based on touching, smelling or tasting them.
Those participants identified as heavy users
of flowers revealed different priorities, rating emotion conditioning as more important than showing care to others.
The researchers say…
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GM in talks to bring Chinese cars to India: report
NEW DELHI (AFP) –
US auto giant General Motors is in advanced talks with its Chinese partners on a proposal to bring their vehicles to India, according to the Press Trust of India.
GM began talks with its partners Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC) and Wuling eight months ago to explore possibilities of bringing their light commercial vehicles to India.
“Now we know what can work in India and what cannot,” Karl Slym, the president of General Motors India, was quoted as saying by the news agency on Saturday.
“We are at a position (where) very, very soon we should be able to make a decision” on how to proceed, Slym said.
GM and the two other companies have a three-way joint venture in China known as SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co.
They are also looking beyond bringing only commercial vehicles to India through their partnership, the news agency said.
SAI…
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Fannie Mae Asks For $15 Billion More And Charges Rent To Foreclosed Borrowers
WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 6 (TOTI) –
In a couple signs that the housing market is still far from fully recovered, Fannie Mae has asked the Fed for $15 billion more in funds to stay alive at the same time they announced plans to allow borrowers in foreclosure to remain in the house by making lease payments.
The recent news comes as Fannie Mae announces they lost a staggering $18.9 billion in the latest quarter. That’s $4 billion worse than the prior year quarter.
If the Treasury Department gives FNM the $15 billion, it will be the fourth time the mortgage lender has tapped the system.
The money paid to FNM is huge. They has so far received a total of $44.9 billion in federal government assistance, under a senior preferred-stock purchase agreement.
Fannie Mae’s Deed for Lease Program is expected to help stabil…
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Australia’s resources boom set to grow: central bank
by Amy Coopes SYDNEY (AFP) –
Australia’s resources boom is set to grow as Asian economies lead the global economic recovery, the country’s central bank said Friday as it lifted growth forecasts.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said resources-driven exports had held up during the financial crisis and had been buoyed by strong expansion in the mining sector.
The bank lifted its growth forecast for 2009 from 0.5 percent to 1.75 percent and raised estimates for growth in the 12 months to fourth-quarter 2010 from 2.25 percent to 3.25 percent.
“Investment in the resources sector is at historically high levels and is expected to increase further, particularly as the LNG (liquefied natural gas) sector expands,” it said.
The bank said the giant economies of China and India were driving the global recovery and Australia owed its performance as the only major Western nation t…
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14 charged in Wall St insider trading probe
by Sebastian Smith NEW YORK (AFP) –
Law enforcement officials in New York announced charges against 14 people in a widening probe into the largest ever alleged hedge-fund insider trading scheme on Wall Street.
US Attorney Preet Bharara and New York’s assistant FBI director Joseph Demarest said the accused took part in insider trading schemes that “generated more than 20 million dollars in illegal profits.”
They included hedge fund managers and trading firm executives, lawyers and corporate insiders, the prosecutor and FBI officer said in a statement.
Of the 14, eight were arrested early Thursday, while a ninth was being sought, and later released on bail. Five other defendants had already been charged and have pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to insider trading crimes.
The FBI sweep was linked to the ongoing probe into alleged insider trading by Raj Rajaratn…
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Ancestry.com Goes Public In NASDAQ IPO
NEW YORK CITY, NY., Nov. 5 (TOTI) –
Internet company Ancestry.com has gone public today with a $7.4 million Initial Public Offering on NASDAQ.
The company will trade with the stock symbol ACOM.
The money will be used by the company to repay debts and to look for potential acquisitions which could strengthen their market position.
As part of their IPO, company officials stood on the podium at NASDAQ and rang the opening bell.
Ancestry.com has been around since 1983 and boast being the world’s largest destination website for family history buffs, with over 1 million subscribers. The company is based in Provo, Utah and was acquired by Spectrum Equity Investors in December 2007 for $354.8 million.
The company is having a solid year as it revenues have increased 13% to $107.8 million. Ancestry.com …
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Cisco Systems Beats Expectations
SAN JOSE, Ca., Nov.5 (TOTI) –
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) reported better than expected revenue forecasts. Althought the companies revenues fell slightly, the company still did well.
The company reported revenues of $9.02 billion dollars, a 12.7% decrease in year over year revenues.
Cisco specializes in high end computer equipment such as routers, switches and other advanced technologies.
Company CEO, John Chambers said the following in a video statement, “The results, given how challenging it was, were pretty solid. When you think about it during the year, we generated almost 10 billion dollars in cash from operations; 36 billion dollars in sales. Our Public Sector and Services both were the two positive lights. Service Provider and Enterprise and Commercial were a little bit more challenging.”
Chambers continued, …
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Intel Charged With Antitrust Over Dell Payment
NEW YORK CITY, NY., Nov. 5 (TOTI) –
A $6 billion payment made by Intel Corporation to Dell Inc. over a five year period that ended in 2007 has resulted in the chip maker receiving Antitrust charges from the New York Attorney’s General Office.
The payments were made as part of a program called ‘MOAP’ (Mother of all Programs) and later ‘MCP’ (Meet Competition Payments).
According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, these payments represented illegal rebates that helped Intel become a monopoly in the computer CPU market. Cuomo also alleged that these payments prevented Intel rival Advanced Micro Designs from making headway in the competitive world of PC manufacturing.
The charges by Cuomo mirror earlier allegations by the European Unio…
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