PARIS (AFP) ― Long-haul Airbus A350 and A380 passengers jets will soon come equipped with ejectable black boxes that can float, making them easier to find in an air crash at sea, aviation sources said Monday.“At the end of last year Airbus got the green light from EASA (European Air Security Agency) to work on the necessary modifications to its planes in order to install these new black boxes in the rear of the planes,” one of the sources told AFP.An EASA spokesman confirmed that the agency was

Jan. 13, 2015

DETROIT (AFP) ― Ford and Honda stole the spotlight Monday at the Detroit auto show with the debuts of two hot new supercars, reviving long-absent favorites: The legendary GT and the Acura NSX.While muscle and speed were abundant at the premier U.S. car and truck exposition, little could measure up to the dazzle from the sleek track-ready-but-street-legal rockets from the two big automakers.The unveilings marked a new stage for the U.S. industry, symbolizing a “full clear” from the more austere c

Jan. 13, 2015

Ewald Nowotny. (Bloomberg)European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said policymakers must take deflation risks seriously and shouldn’t wait too long to react. While the euro area isn’t in a situation where price declines lead to postponed spending, “it is important that one takes deflation risks seriously and addresses them,” Nowotny, who is also governor of the Austrian central bank, said during a panel discussion late Monday in Vienna. “We shouldn’t wait too long with a rea

Jan. 13, 2015

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams, who will vote on policy this year, said raising interest rates in June would be a close call amid “strong momentum” in the labor market and weaker wage gains. “I would expect by June that the argument pro and con for lifting off rates will be probably a close call” assuming that inflation doesn’t fall further, Williams said Monday in a telephone interview from his San Francisco office. “It’s a reasonable guess.” His remarks dovetaile

Jan. 13, 2015

Bill Gross said he was fired from Pacific Investment Management Co., the first time he’s publicly confirmed that he was dismissed from the firm he cofounded in 1971. Gross, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg View’s Barry Ritholtz, said he offered to step down from the executive committee and compensation committee and oversee closed-end funds after differences with management over his personality and the firm’s business direction. The full interview airs on Bloomberg Radio on Jan. 17 at 10

Jan. 13, 2015

RIYADH (AFP) ― Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro held talks in OPEC’s leading oil producer Saudi Arabia on Sunday, officials said, before he headed to Algeria for further dialogue about low world crude prices.“The visit aims to strengthen ties and friendship,” a Venezuelan official told AFP in brief remarks, adding that it was “part of the tour to OPEC members.”Maduro arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday from Iran, a fellow member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Count

Jan. 12, 2015

Goldman Sachs said U.S. oil prices need to trade near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year to curb shale investments as it gave up on OPEC cutting output to balance the market. The bank cut its forecasts for global benchmark crude prices, predicting inventories will increase over the first half of this year, according to an emailed report. Excess storage and tanker capacity suggests the market can run a surplus far longer than it has in the past, said Goldman analysts including Jeffrey Cu

Jan. 12, 2015

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ― Cyprus’ national airline lost its operating license and stopped all flights after the European Union ruled that it had illegally received tens of millions of euros in state aid, officials said Friday.Finance Minister Harris Georgiades and Communications Minister Marios Demetriades said that an administrator will now be tasked with winding down Cyprus Airways. The country’s air transport licensing authority said it revoked the airline’s license because it could not ensure f

Jan. 11, 2015

TEHRAN (AFP) ― Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, flanked by Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro, vowed Saturday to “neutralize” the threat posed to both countries by plummeting oil prices, in a barely veiled broadside at Saudi Arabia.OPEC members Iran and Venezuela are reeling from a slide in the cost of crude to around $50 per barrel from $100 just six months ago, a precipitous fall that is straining their budgets.Losses accelerated after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries carte

Jan. 11, 2015

BERLIN (AFP) ― ECB board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger has disputed in a magazine interview that the eurozone is now experiencing deflation and expressed skepticism about the central bank buying up sovereign bonds. Markets surged this week as investors bet data showing prices fell year-on-year in the eurozone in December would push the ECB to launch massive purchases of government bonds, only to slump back on indications it may act cautiously.“We are seeing persistent weak inflation, due to amon

Jan. 11, 2015

The U.S. is back in the driver’s seat of the global economy after 15 years of watching China and emerging markets take the lead. The world’s biggest economy will expand by 3.2 percent or more this year, its best performance since at least 2005, as an improving job market leads to stepped-up consumer spending, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA. That outcome would be about what each foresees for the world economy as a whole and would be the first

Jan. 11, 2015

LAS VEGAS (AFP) ― It has four wheels, is always connected and the driver is optional: The car of the future is starting to take shape from collaboration between automakers and their technology partners.At this week’s International CES in Las Vegas, a new breed of cars with nearly complete autonomy and elaborate gadgetry has provided a peek into transportation solutions in the coming years.One of the most ambitious of the prototypes on display comes from German auto giant Daimler, which rolled it

Jan. 8, 2015

SINGAPORE (AFP) ― The plunge in crude prices will give a much-needed boost to Asia’s oil-guzzling economies and provides governments a “golden opportunity” to implement crucial structural reforms such as cutting expensive energy subsidies, analysts say.A slowdown in the key export markets of Europe, China and Japan, the end of U.S. stimulus measures, and an expected U.S. rate hike ― fuelling a flight of foreign cash in search of better returns ― has left some governments having to make tough dec

Jan. 8, 2015

LONDON (AP) ― The eurozone has a new economic headache to contend with. Consumer prices fell in December in the currency bloc for the first time in over five years, raising concerns of a protracted drop that can hurt growth and reinforcing expectations the European Central Bank will provide an aggressive stimulus. Lower energy costs pushed consumer prices 0.2 percent lower in the month from the year before, according to a report Wednesday by the Eurostat statistics agency. That’s a big drop from

Jan. 8, 2015