The Korea Herald

Qantas reaches agreement with engineers

SYDNEY (AFP) ― Qantas and one of the three unions at the centre of a long-running industrial dispute that led to the airline’s fleet being grounded reached an agreement on Monday to end their standoff.The breakthrough will be presented to Fair Work Australia, the country’s industrial relations umpire, later Monday, almost two months after Qantas chief Alan Joyce ordered all planes out of the skies.The unprecedented shutdown followed a fierce backlash from unions, including rolling strikes, conce

Dec. 19, 2011

Japan quake bolsters holiday spending

Hiromi Komatsu is hitting Tokyo department stores in search of Christmas presents this year for the first time in her life, as she prepares for a rare visit of family members for the holiday season. “It’s usually not a big deal if we’re not together but this year I must be with them,” said Komatsu, 40, whose parents live in Rikuzentakata, a northeastern coastal town devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. “I’m spending a bit more than usual even though I’m between jobs now to give bac

Dec. 19, 2011

Iran, Russia’s Tatneft sign $1b oil field deal

Russia’s OAO Tatneft signed an accord valued at $1 billion with Iran to develop the Zagheh oil field in the Persian Gulf nation, where many energy projects face delays due to intensified sanctions by Western countries. A preliminary deal was signed in Tehran earlier Sunday between Tatneft, which is based in Russia’s Tatarstan region, and Iran’s Petroleum and Engineering Development Co., the Iranian Oil Ministry said on its news website Shana Sunday. Russia, which has opposed the latest financial

Dec. 19, 2011

EU Ministers Seek Crisis IMF Funding Deal

EU finance ministers will hold a meeting to discuss $261 billion funding through the IMFEuropean finance ministers Monday (local time) will seek to meet a self-imposed deadline for drawing additional aid to the debt crisis and to form new budget rules as investor confidence that a comprehensive solution is achievable wanes. Euro-area finance ministers will hold a conference call. Brussels time to discuss 200 billion euros ($261 billion) in additional funding through the International Monetary Fu

Dec. 19, 2011

EU Ministers Seek Crisis IMF Funding Deal

Peugeot, Fiat, GM lead European car sales drop

PSA Peugeot Citroen, Fiat SpA and General Motors Co. led the biggest decline in European car sales in five months as the region’s economy slipped closer toward a recession. Registrations in November dropped 3 percent to 1.07 million vehicles from 1.10 million a year earlier, the biggest decline since June, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA, said Friday in a statement. Eleven-month sales declined 1.1 percent to 12.6 million registrations. “This minus figure

Dec. 18, 2011

PlayStation Vita hits Japan stores

TOKYO (AP) ― Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hit stores in Japan on Saturday as thousands of game enthusiasts lined up early in the morning to be among the first to buy it.Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is predicting brisk sales, even though the launch may have missed some holiday shoppers. A successful debut would help the company offset the rest of its struggling business. Sony projects a loss of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year through March 2012, which wo

Dec. 18, 2011

Slow recovery for flood-hit Thai plants

AYUTTHAYA (AFP) ― Piles of rubbish, rusting furniture and discarded machinery litter one of Thailand’s top high-tech parks, a former symbol of economic prowess laid to waste by weeks of flooding.Many of the companies located in the country’s industrial heartland say it will be several months at least before their operations return to normal. Investor confidence in the kingdom is likely to take even longer to recover.At least one major manufacturer, Sanyo Semiconductor, is pulling the plug on its

Dec. 18, 2011

WTO Doha trade talks end deadlocked

The World Trade Organization wrapped up a ministerial meeting Saturday deadlocked on the Doha Round of negotiations for a global free trade pact, and some ministers calling for a new path.Conference chairman and Nigerian Trade Minister Olusegun Aganga summarized the ministers’ regret at the impasse in a concluding statement.The WTO’s 153 member states agreed to “more fully explore different negotiating approaches” and “intensify their efforts to look into ways” to overcome the stalemate, said Ag

Dec. 18, 2011

Moody‘s downgrades Belgium’s debt by 2 notches

NEW YORK (AP) -- Moody’s Investors Services on Friday downgraded Belgium’s credit rating by two notches, citing strains on eurozone countries as they try to finance their heavy debt loads amid the regional financial crisis. The ratings agency cut Belgium’s local- and foreign-currency government bond ratings to “Aa3” from Aa1," with a negative outlook. The ratings remain investment grade. Moody’s said the downgrade comes as soaring borrowing costs strain the finances of heavily indebted countries

Dec. 18, 2011

Senate OKs payroll tax cut, huge budget bill

U.S. Senate approves 2-month extension of payroll tax cut and jobless benefits, finishes spending billWASHINGTON (AP) ― The Senate voted Saturday to temporarily avert a Jan. 1 payroll tax increase and benefit cutoff for the long-time unemployed, forcing a reluctant President Barack Obama to make an election-year choice between unions and environmentalists over whether to build an oil pipeline through the heart of the country. With the still-reeling economy serving as a backdrop, the Senate’s 89-

Dec. 18, 2011

Senate OKs payroll tax cut, huge budget bill

U.S. inflation eases, creates space for Fed stimulus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ― U.S. consumer prices were flat in November as Americans paid less for cars and gasoline, a further sign of a cooldown in inflation that could give the Federal Reserve more room to help a still weak economy. The Labor Department said Friday the Consumer Price Index was unchanged last month. Economists had expected an increase of 0.1 percent. Prices spiked earlier in the year, but the report showed the trend has shifted. Over the past 12 months, prices have risen 3.4 percent

Dec. 18, 2011

Central bank row halts Hungary rescue talks

BUDAPEST (Reuters) ―The EU and IMF on Friday cut short talks with Hungary aimed at paving the way for aid discussions, pressuring the government to amend a controversial central bank bill or face possible financing problems next year.Hungary’s center-right government, which broke ties with international lenders in 2010 and pursued unorthodox policies to boost the economy, said in a U-turn last month it would reopen discussions with the IMF and EU amid a deepening eurozone debt crisis, which put

Dec. 18, 2011

GM ‘cannot support’ plans to save Saab

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Bankruptcy proceedings remain on the cards for troubled Swedish car maker Saab after former owner General Motors Corp. said Saturday that proposals presented so far to salvage the troubled brand are unacceptable and won’t be supported. Trollhattan-based Saab, bought by Dutch group Swedish Automobile NV in 2010, faces a court-hearing Monday to determine whether it will exit bankruptcy protection. That means that if Saab doesn’t present a viable survival plan, bankruptcy proceedi

Dec. 18, 2011

Regulators sue former top Fannie, Freddie execs

NEW YORK (Reuters) ― Six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sued by U.S. regulators on charges of misleading investors about the mortgage finance companies’ exposure to risky home loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.The case is one of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s biggest actions against high-level financial industry executives, although the regulator did not specify a dollar amount for damages in the alleged fraud. Many lawmakers consider Fanni

Dec. 18, 2011

GM ‘cannot support’ plans to save Saab

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Bankruptcy proceedings remain on the cards for troubled Swedish car maker Saab after former owner General Motors Corp. said Saturday that proposals presented so far to salvage the troubled brand are unacceptable and won’t be supported. Trollhattan-based Saab, bought by Dutch group Swedish Automobile NV in 2010, faces a court-hearing Monday to determine whether it will exit bankruptcy protection. That means that if Saab doesn’t present a viable survival plan, bankruptcy proceedi

Dec. 18, 2011

‘N.K. agrees to suspend uranium enrichment’

North Korea has agreed to suspend its enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons, local reports said Saturday. Citing an unidentified diplomatic source, Yonhap News reported the two countries reached the agreement during recent talks held in Beijing. The sides “reached the agreement based on North Korea’s pledge to implement initial measures of denuclearization that include a suspension of its uranium enrichment program,” Yonhap said. The United States, in return, has agreed to provide up to 240,

Dec. 18, 2011

Morgan Stanley to cut 1,600 jobs globally in 2012

Morgan Stanley, the financial firm whose shares have declined 45 percent this year, plans to cut about 1,600 jobs amid an industrywide drop in revenue from investment banking and trading.Reductions will occur in the first quarter of 2012 at all levels of the firm, Mark Lake, a company spokesman, said in an interview Thursday. The figure amounts to about 2.6 percent of the 62,648 employees New York-based Morgan Stanley had at the end of September.Chief Executive Officer James Gorman is grappling

Dec. 16, 2011

Morgan Stanley to cut 1,600 jobs globally in 2012

Unemployment claims at 3.5-year low in U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The job market is healthier than at any time since the end of the Great Recession.The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest since May 2008, a sign that the waves of corporate layoffs that have defined the past few years are all but over.“This is unexpectedly great news,” said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.It will take an additional step ― robust hiring, not just the end of layoffs ― to bring the 8.6 percent un

Dec. 16, 2011

Gates rules out return to Microsoft helm

SYDNEY (AFP) -- Bill Gates on Thursday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.”Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the U.S. software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he was busy working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ”and that will be what

Dec. 15, 2011

OPEC agrees to increase oil production

OPEC decided to increase its production ceiling to 30 million barrels a day, the first change in three years, moving the group’s target nearer to current output as it grapples with rising exports from post-war Libya. The new quota is for all members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Iraq and Libya, and compares with actual November production from those 12 nations of 30.37 million barrels a day, according to OPEC estimates. The target will be reviewed at its next me

Dec. 15, 2011