Facebook cracks down on gun sales

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― Facebook is taking aim at people who are using the social network or Instagram photo-sharing platform to sell guns.Under pressure from gun safety advocates, the social network will block members under 18 years of age from viewing pages or timeline posts reported to involve private sales of firearms and will set up online “checkpoints” warning people that such deals may be illegal.And people offering guns for sale on Facebook will not be allowed to indicate that background c

March 6, 2014

China’s growth target flexible, minister says

BEIJING (AFP) ― China’s finance minister suggested Thursday that a growth rate of “7.2 percent or 7.3 percent” would be acceptable, a day after the country announced a 2014 target of “around 7.5 percent.”China is the world’s second-largest economy and a key driver of global growth, with its expansion goals closely watched.At the opening Wednesday of the National People’s Congress, its Communist-controlled parliament, Premier Li Keqiang announced a target of “around 7.5 percent” for gross domesti

March 6, 2014

ECB risks repeating Japan’s ‘lost decade’ deflation mistake

The central bank failed to sound a deflation alert. “At present there is no reason to expect that overall prices will drop sharply and exert deflationary pressure on the entire economy,” policy makers wrote in their monthly report, signed off by the governor. That governor was Yasuo Matsushita and the report was published in January 1998. Within six months, Japan’s consumer prices excluding food began falling in a trend that would mark the next 15 years. The concern now for economists from Barcl

March 6, 2014

HSBC, 4 other banks sued for manipulating gold prices

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Five banks at the center of London’s gold trade have been sued in New York for manipulating prices, in the latest accusation of fraudulent collusion in the global finance hub.A class-action suit was filed by U.S. gold futures and options trader Kevin Maher against Bank of Nova Scotia, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Societe Generale, all involved in setting the London Gold Fix, a twice-daily benchmark price used as a reference for trade in gold and gold derivatives.The s

March 6, 2014

Facebook looks to buy solar drone company

NEW YORK (AP) ― Facebook is in talks to buy Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered drones, to step up its efforts to provide Internet access to remote parts of the world, according to reports from technology blog Techcrunch and financial news outlet CNBC.Both websites cited anonymous sources who are familiar with the deal and put a purchase price at $60 million.Facebook spokesman Tucker Bounds said Tuesday that the company does not comment on rumors and speculation. Titan Aerospace representa

March 5, 2014

Apple finance chief retiring

Apple on Tuesday announced that the chief finance officer who served during the company’s meteoric rise over the past decade is retiring later this year.Peter Oppenheimer will leave in September, turning the position over to Luca Maestri, according to the maker of iPhones, iPads, iPods and Macintosh computers.“Peter has served as our CFO for the past decade as Apple’s annual revenue grew from $8 billion to $171 billion and our global footprint expanded dramatically,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a

March 5, 2014

Obama budget focuses on boosting economy

WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.9 trillion budget Tuesday that would funnel money into road building, education and other economy-bolstering programs, handing Democrats a playbook for their election-year themes of creating jobs and narrowing the income gap between rich and poor.However, the November election and gridlock between the Democratic-run Senate and Republican-led House mean much of Obama’s proposals will go nowhere. Many of them were in earlier budgets and i

March 5, 2014

Brutal winter freezes U.S. auto sales

CHICAGO (AFP) ― Brutal winter weather chilled U.S. auto sales in February, with General Motors, Ford and Toyota reporting losses Monday even as rival Chrysler extended a winning streak.Total industry sales were unchanged from February 2013 at 1.2 million vehicles while the sales pace came in at an adjusted, annualized rate of 15.3 million vehicles, according to Autodata.That was an improvement over the three percent drop posted in bitterly cold and storm-swept January.The U.S. auto industry had

March 4, 2014

Apple dials up effort to meld iPhone with cars

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― Apple is accelerating the race to make smartphone applications easier and safer to use in cars. Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are previewing Apple’s iPhone technology for cars this week at an auto show in Geneva. The partnerships give Apple an early lead over Google’s loosely knit family of Android phones in a duel to make mobile applications more accessible while drivers are behind the wheel. Apple’s iOS mobile software and Google’s Android operating system power most of

March 4, 2014

Geneva Motor Show to make tracks out of crisis

PARIS (AFP) ― The Geneva Motor Show will kick off this week on an optimistic note as the long-suffering European car market appears to finally have swerved out of the slow lane.Luxurious sports cars, high-end SUVs and city cars will be bumper-to-bumper at the show ― one of the auto industry’s biggest and most diverse events ― as it cruises out from under the long shadow of industry crisis.Carmakers and analysts alike say the worst of the difficulties are now in the rear-view mirror.“The worst of

March 3, 2014

‘Ultra-connected world’

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ― We’re in the beginning of a world in which everything is connected to the Internet and with one another, while powerful yet relatively cheap computers analyze all that data for ways to improve lives. Toothbrushes tell your mirror to remind you to floss. Basketball jerseys detect impending heart failure and call the ambulance for you. At least that’s the vision presented this past week at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain. The four-day conference

March 3, 2014

Widening BOJ price target seen as option by board member Shirai

Bank of Japan board member Sayuri Shirai suggested the central bank could broaden its 2 percent inflation target into a numerical range once price gains advance closer to the goal. “The idea of applying a range to the inflation target should not be ruled out,” Shirai said in a speech given in New York and published March 1 on the BOJ’s website. A band “might be examined after the inflation rate exceeds at least 1 percent in a stable manner, and after it is judged that inflation expectations are

March 3, 2014