U.S. Senate approves budget

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― The U.S. Senate approved its first budget resolution in four years early Saturday after a marathon all-night voting session, setting up a political duel with the Republican-held House.The sweeping plan for fiscal year 2014, the first budget blueprint passed by the Democrat-led Senate under President Barack Obama since 2009, squeaked past by the narrowest of margins, a 50-49 vote with no Republican support.“Doing this has been a Herculean feat,” said Democratic Majority Leader

March 24, 2013

Kuroda eyes ‘all-out efforts’ on deflation

The Bank of Japan’s new Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda on Thursday pledged “all-out efforts” to rid Japan of growth-sapping deflation as gloomy new trade data underlined the scale of the task ahead.Kuroda, a finance veteran who supports aggressive monetary easing, told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he would do his best to revive the world’s third-largest economy.“I said that I will make all-out efforts ... to pull Japan’s economy out of deflation,” Kuroda said after a morning meeting with the premier.The 68-y

March 22, 2013

U.S. government funding bill sails through House

The House of Representatives passed a huge stopgap spending bill Thursday to keep the government functioning through the end of September, sidestepping any threat of a government shutdown.The bipartisan vote in the Republican-controlled House follows approval earlier this week in the Democrat-controlled Senate and sends the measure President Barack Obama to be signed into law.The measure would fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every Cabinet agency through Sept. 30, provide another $87 bil

March 22, 2013

U.S. Senate votes $85 billion cuts, averts shutdown

The Senate approved a huge spending bill to keep the government open through the end of September, preventing a shutdown next week but locking in $85 billion in budget cuts that will mean job furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.The bipartisan 73-26 vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate sends the measure to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which is expected to approve it on Thursday and ship it to President Barack Obama for his signature. The vote represen

March 21, 2013

Fed says it will stick with aggressive stimulus

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday stood by its efforts to keep borrowing costs at record lows, saying it isn't yet convinced that the U.S. economy's growth can accelerate without significant help from the central bank.It wants to see sustained improvement.Fed officials reinforced their plan to keep short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent.An unemployment rate of 6.5 percent is a threshold, not a “trigger,” for a possible rate increase, Chair

March 21, 2013

Cyprus banks won't open before Tuesday at earliest

Banks in Cyprus will not open before Tuesday at the earliest as government officials try to find a new plan to stave off financial ruin, the central bank's spokeswoman said Wednesday.Aliki Stylianou said the banks would remain shut for another two days, Thursday and Friday. Monday is a national bank holiday in Cyprus.The cash-strapped lenders have been closed since Saturday, when Cyprus said it would raid bank deposits to help fund its international bailout package, to avoid a bank run.The Parli

March 21, 2013

Investigators search Paris home of IMF chief

A lawyer for IMF chief Christine Lagarde says French investigators have searched her Paris home as part of an inquiry into her role in a $400 million arbitration deal in favor of a tycoon.The lawyer, Yves Repiquet (eev ruh-PEE-kay), says Lagarde has nothing to hide and welcomed Wednesday's search as another step in proving her innocence.Lagarde was France's finance minister when magnate Bernard Tapie won a 2008 settlement with a state-owned bank over the mishandled sale of Adidas in the 1990s. C

March 21, 2013

Cyprus in limbo after rejecting bank seizures plan

Lawmakers in Cyprus decisively rejected a plan on Tuesday to seize up to 10 percent of people's bank deposits in order to secure an international bailout and prevent a collapse of the country's banks.The vote leaves the tiny Mediterranean economy in financial limbo, but hundreds of protesters outside Parliament cheered and sang the national anthem when they heard the bill failed.Still, Cyprus needs 15.8 billion euros ($20.4 billion) to bail out its heavily indebted banks and shore up government

March 20, 2013

Argentina: HSBC helped launder money, evade taxes

BUENOS AIRES (AP) ― Argentina’s government on Monday accused the British banking giant HSBC of facilitating money laundering and tax evasion. Tax chief Ricardo Echegaray said HSBC’s Argentina subsidiary created an illegal scheme enabling its clients to hide more than $100 million. He said the scheme included a criminal organization and fake receipts used to launder money for various companies. HSBC’s Latin America spokeswoman, Lyssette Bravo, issued a statement that did not deny the accusations

March 19, 2013

Web pioneers win inaugural $1.5m engineering prize

LONDON (AFP) ― Five engineers who helped create the Internet were on Monday awarded a $1.5 million prize which British organizers hope will come to be seen as equivalent to a Nobel prize for engineering.Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Marc Andreessen of the United States will share the first ever $1 million Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering with Louis Pouzin of France and Tim Berners-Lee of Britain.“The emergence of the Internet and the web involved many teams of people all over the world,” sai

March 19, 2013

Savings account seizure plan draws fury in Cyprus

A plan to seize up to 10 percent of savings accounts in Cyprus to help pay for a (euro) 15.8 billion ($20.4 billion) financial bailout was met with fury Monday, and the government shut down banks until later this week while lawmakers wrangled over how to keep the island nation from bankruptcy.Though the euro and stock prices of European banks fell, global financial markets largely remained calm, and there was little sense that bank account holders elsewhere across the continent faced similar ris

March 19, 2013