The Korea Herald

U.K.’s downgrade seen meaningless

U.K. government bonds climbed, outperforming their “AAA” rated German peers in the first day of trading after Moody’s Investors Service cut Britain’s top rank, as investors downplayed the significance of the downgrade.“What Moody’s said is old news,” said Stuart Thomson, who helps oversee $109 billion at Ignis Asset Management in Glasgow, Scotland. “It is behind the curve.”Gilts rose Monday, reducing the additional yield investors demand to hold Britain’s 10-year benchmark securities instead of

Feb. 26, 2013

Jobless, cities could be first to feel pain

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Who’ll be the first to feel the sting? Jobless Americans who have been out of work for a long time and local governments that are paying off loans to fix roads and schools are in tough spots when it comes to the automatic federal budget cuts that are scheduled to kick in Friday. About 2 million long-term unemployed people could see checks now averaging $300 a week reduced by about $30. There could also be reductions in federal payments that subsidize clean energy, school constr

Feb. 26, 2013

Jobless, cities could be first to feel pain

NY Times to rebrand Herald Tribune in its own image

For a decade the International Herald Tribune has been the global edition of the New York Times in all but name. On Monday, the parent company made it official.In a statement, the New York Times Company said the 125-year-old offshoot of the defunct New York Herald Tribune will be rechristened sometime this fall as the International New York Times."The digital revolution has turned the New York Times from being a great American newspaper to becoming one of the world's best-known news providers,"

Feb. 26, 2013

NY Times to rebrand Herald Tribune in its own image

Time to stick to furniture?

Swedish furniture giant Ikea became entangled in Europe's widening meat scandal Monday, forced to withdraw meatballs from stores across Europe amid suspicions that they contained horse meat.Stores in the U.S. and Canada were not affected, Ikea said.The company reacted after authorities in the Czech Republic said they had detected horse DNA in tests of 1-kilogram (2.2-pound) packs of frozen meatballs that were labeled as beef and pork. The Czech State Veterinary Administration said it tested two

Feb. 26, 2013

HP to make $169 Android tablet

BARCELONA (AP) ― Hewlett-Packard Co. is making a tablet computer that uses Google’s Android operating system, steering clear of Microsoft’s latest tablet-oriented version of Windows, the company said Sunday. The HP Slate 7 will have a 7-inch screen, making it similar in size to the Amazon Kindle Fire. It will cost $169 when it goes on sale in April in the U.S. Most tablet makers, including Samsung and Amazon, have chosen Android as the best and cheapest operating system for products that can com

Feb. 25, 2013

Huawei reveals world’s fastest smartphone

BARCELONA (AP) ― Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world’s third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product “the fastest smartphone in the world” and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand. Parts of the presentation of the phone at a press conference Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that the company has some way to go in polishing its pitch for a global audience. Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group said the new phone can be

Feb. 25, 2013

Huawei reveals world’s fastest smartphone

Automatic budget cuts come under fire

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The automatic budget cuts set to take hold this week were roundly condemned Sunday as the Obama administration and congressional Republicans bickered over who’s to blame for the failure to reach a deal to stave off the $85 billion reduction in government services that threatens the fragile economic recovery.The grim picture is emerging as the White House and lawmakers count down the days until the government is forced to make drastic cuts in domestic and defense spending with h

Feb. 25, 2013

China manufacturing growth falls in February: HSBC

SHANGHAI (AFP) ― China’s manufacturing growth hit a four-month low in February but remained positive, British banking giant HSBC said Monday, noting that the world’s second-biggest economy was still recovering slowly.The bank’s seasonally adjusted preliminary purchasing managers’ index stood at 50.4 for the month, down from a final 52.3 in January, it said in a statement.A reading above 50 indicates expansion and it was the fourth consecutive month of growth, after 12 months of contraction.“The

Feb. 25, 2013

Japan eyes ADB chief to head central bank: reports

TOKYO (AFP) ― Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda is seen as the leading candidate to become Japan’s next central bank governor, local media reported on Saturday.The government is strongly considering nominating Kuroda, 68, as the next Bank of Japan chief to succeed Masaaki Shirakawa, Kyodo News said, quoting sources familiar with the matter.The Asahi Shimbun also reported that one of its government and finance ministry sources said: “Mr. Kuroda is the first candidate.”Incumbent BOJ

Feb. 24, 2013

Japan eyes ADB chief to head central bank: reports

Governors: Looming cuts threaten economic gains

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Washington’s protracted budget stalemate could seriously undermine the economy and stall gains made since the recession, exasperated said Saturday as they tried to gauge the fallout from impending federal spending cuts.At the annual National Governors Association meeting, both Democrat and Republican chief executives expressed pessimism that both sides could find a way to avoid the massive, automatic spending cuts set to begin March 1, pointing to the impasse as another crisis

Feb. 24, 2013

U.K. credit downgrade provokes call for change

LONDON (AP) ― The man in charge in Britain’s economy says he won’t change direction despite a rating agency’s decision to downgrade the nation’s credit rating and he spurned renewed calls from the opposition for more stimulus for a flat-lining economy. Treasury chief George Osborne declared that the action by Moody’s Investors Service redoubled his commitment to the government’s police of cutting spending in an effort to reduce deficits. But Labor Party spokesman Ed Balls said Saturday that the

Feb. 24, 2013

U.K. credit downgrade provokes call for change

China energy consumption rises 3.9% in 2012

BEIJING (AFP) -- Energy consumption by China, the world's leading emitter of C02, rose 3.9 percent in 2012 from the previous year but fell by 3.6 percent per unit of gross domestic product, the government said.The country used the equivalent of 3.62 billion tonnes of coal, the National Bureaus of Statistics reported in a paper on the state of the economy published Friday.Coal represents 66.4 percent of the total energy consumed, with oil and natural gas accounting for 18.9 percent and 5.5 percen

Feb. 23, 2013

Japan identifies cause of Dreamliner fuel leak

TOKYO (AFP) -- Japanese engineers probing problems with Boeing's Dreamliners have identified the cause of fuel leaks but are still investigating more serious issues with the aircraft's batteries, the transport ministry said.Last month, a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 due to fly to Tokyo was grounded in Boston following a fuel spill, while the airline also found a similar problem with another of the next-generation jets in Tokyo.The transport ministry said Friday that the leaks were caused by defecti

Feb. 23, 2013

New York faces 90-minute flight delays in plan for U.S. cuts

Flights at major airports in cities including New York, Chicago and San Francisco could be delayed as long as 90 minutes if automatic U.S. spending cuts take effect on March 1, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.The Federal Aviation Administration will furlough air- traffic controllers beginning April 1, LaHood said yesterday. More than 230 towers at smaller airports, including some with regional-airline flights, may be closed, according to a posting on the FAA website.LaHood outlined the

Feb. 23, 2013

Boeing proposes battery fix for 787s: sources

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boeing attempted a major step Friday toward getting its 787 Dreamliners flying again, proposing a fix for the plane's troubled batteries that could allow the flights to resume as early as April, congressional officials said.The next question is whether the Federal Aviation Administration will agree to let the planes fly even though the root cause of a battery fire in one plane and a smoking battery in another is still unknown.A Boeing team led by CEO Ray Conner presented the p

Feb. 23, 2013

U.S. probes J&J on recalled hip implant marketing

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) -- U.S. prosecutors are investigating Johnson & Johnson's practices in marketing a line of hip replacements recalled in 2010 because many had to be replaced within a few years -- part of a string of more than 30 product recalls by the health care giant in the last 3 1/2 years.The U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts and the Civil Division of the U.S. Justice Department last August sent Johnson & Johnson an "informal request'' for information about its ASR hip replacem

Feb. 23, 2013

U.S. budget cuts can be avoided: Obama

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- President Barack Obama insisted Friday that mandatory government budget cuts set to kick in on March 1 -- known as the sequester -- were not "inevitable."The cuts to defense and domestic spending were mandated in an agreement between Obama and his Republican foes to end a previous budget battle."I never think that anything is inevitable, we always have the opportunity to make the right decisions," Obama told reporters following a White House meeting with visiting Japanese Pri

Feb. 23, 2013

U.S., Japan say trade talks wouldn't exempt areas

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States and Japan said Friday that talks on a Pacific-wide free trade pact would not make prior exemptions of sectors, despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's pledges in the last election.Abe, paying his first visit to Washington since his Liberal Democratic Party swept back to power, did not make any commitment on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks but heard that Washington would not budge."Should Japan participate in the TPP negotiations, all goods would be s

Feb. 23, 2013

Britain loses AAA rating in Moody's downgrade

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Moody's stripped Britain of its triple-A debt rating Friday, saying government debt was still mounting and that growth was too weak to reverse the trend before 2016.In an expected rebuff to the Cameron government's hopes that sharp spending cuts would both reduce its deficit and give growth a boost, the rating agency cut Britain's grade by one notch to Aa1.In parallel, it lowered the rating of the country's central bank, the Bank of England, which also fell from AAA to Aa1.Th

Feb. 23, 2013

U.S. to protect energy from cyberattacks

The U.S. Department of Energy said as much as $20 million was available for researchers to examine ways to protect the energy sector from cyberattacks.U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the funding would target the development of tools and technology to protect delivery systems for oil, natural gas and electricity from cyberattacks."By developing new cybersecurity tools and technologies specifically designed for the needs of the energy sector, utilities and industry will be better equipped to

Feb. 22, 2013