Unlimited bond plan to help lower borrowing costs for struggling countriesFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ― The European Central Bank unveiled its most ambitious plan yet to ease Europe’s financial crisis with a plan to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds to help lower borrowing costs for countries struggling to manage their debts. Large-scale purchases of short-term government bonds would drive up their price and push down their interest rate, or yield, taking some pressure off of financially str

Sept. 7, 2012

The European Central Bank unveiled its most ambitious plan yet to halt Europe's financial crisis on Thursday with a pledge to buy unlimited amounts of the government bonds of countries struggling to manage their debts.Large-scale purchases of short-term government bonds would drive up their price and push down their interest rate, or yield, making it less expensive for countries to borrow money. T

Sept. 7, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― Apple on Tuesday invited members of the media to a Sept. 12 event in San Francisco for what is expected to be the debut of a new-generation iPhone.Email invitations bore the cryptic message, “It’s almost here,” and a large number “12” casting a shadow that appeared to be the number five, suggesting that the event would spotlight the long-anticipated iPhone 5.Leaks and rumors portray the new iPhone as having a larger touch-screen than its predecessor and say that it will be

Sept. 5, 2012

ATHENS (AFP) ― Greece faces a longer recession if the country is forced by EU peers to apply cuts worth 11.6 billion euros ($14.4 billion) over two years instead of four, a state-sponsored study said on Tuesday.“In the case where the 11.6 billion euros in agreed government spending cuts are implemented (over) a two-year period, we adopt the hypothesis that the 2012 recession will continue in 2013 and 2014,” the Center of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE) said in a bulletin.Greece has been se

Sept. 5, 2012

NEW YORK (AFP) -- Samsung forces employees at its Chinese factories to work up to five times the legal overtime limit, bans them from sitting down and denies basic labor rights, according to a US-based watchdog.According to China Labor Watch‘s probe of eight factories, the South Korean electronics giant is guilty of widespread “legal and inhumane violations.”These include forcing workers at the Tianjin Samsung Mobile Display factory to put in as many as 189 hours of overtime in a month, when the

Sept. 5, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Treasury Department said Tuesday that the national debt has topped $16 trillion, the result of chronic government deficits that have poured more than $50,000 worth of red ink onto federal ledgers for every man, woman and child in the United States.The news was greeted with a round of press releases from Barack Obama’s Republican rivals, who used the grim-but-expected news to criticize the president for the government’s fiscal performance over his 3 1/2 years in office. Obam

Sept. 5, 2012

Volvo AB’s bus unit will improve its production system to boost profitability, which has lagged behind that of the company’s truck and construction equipment divisions for years, the head of the business said. “We have work ahead of us to strengthen our profitability,” Per Carlson, 51, said Aug. 31 in a phone interview. “It’s our conviction and our ambition” that the bus operations will be as profitable as the other divisions, he said. Olof Persson, who became Volvo’s chief executive officer a y

Sept. 4, 2012

DETROIT (AP) -- Americans likely ignored discouraging economic news and headed into car showrooms last month, drawn by model-year closeouts and appealing new cars. Analysts are predicting sales of more than 1.2 million vehicles for August, up around 20 percent from a year earlier. The annual pace is expected to reach 14.2 million to 14.5 million vehicles, making August the second-best month of the year. Automakers report sales figures throughout the day on Tuesday. The numbers will likely show t

Sept. 4, 2012

NEW YORK (AFP) -- Moody‘s on Monday lowered the European Union’s long-term issuer rating outlook from stable to negative, saying the move reflected the negative outlooks of the bloc‘s key budget contributors.“It is reasonable to assume that the EU’s creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states,” it said, citing negative outlooks for Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands.Moody‘s maintained the EU’s “AAA” rating, saying its “two key ratio

Sept. 4, 2012

Moody's on Monday lowered the European Union's long-term issuer rating outlook from stable to negative, saying the move reflected the negative outlooks of the bloc's key budget contributors."It is reasonable to assume that the EU's creditworthiness should move in line with the creditworthiness of its strongest key member states," it said, citing negative outlooks for Britain, France, Germany and t

Sept. 4, 2012

LONDON (AFP) ― The new boss of British lender Barclays wants to shrink its investment bank division as he seeks to move on from rate-rigging and mis-selling scandals, he indicated in an interview published on Sunday.Chief executive Antony Jenkins told The Sunday Times newspaper that there was “no doubt” that tough banking sector regulations would “make some activities in investment banking difficult to make an adequate return on.”He added that profits would be hit by British plans to force banks

Sept. 3, 2012

MOSCOW (AFP) ― Russian leaders hailed their powerful energy industry on Sunday as the country posted a post-Soviet record high rate of oil production that should boost coffers in uncertain global economic times.The energy ministry said private and state companies extracted a combined 10.38 million barrels per day in August ― only a slight increase over July but higher than any figure seen in the past two decades.Nearly a quarter of the oil was produced by the government’s expanding Rosneft unit

Sept. 3, 2012