SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― The world’s wealthiest man Bill Gates would still pick up a $100 bill on the street, but he has no tips about how to get by on less than $100,000 a year.Oh, and the 58-year-old Microsoft co-founder says he can still leap over a chair, if it is a small one.Those and other insights came as Gates fielded questions on Monday in an online chat session at social news website Reddit.com.Along with playful personal perspectives, Gates shared thoughts on philanthropy, government sno

Japan’s current-account deficit widened to a record in December on soaring imports, adding to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s challenges as he tries to drive a recovery in the world’s third-biggest economy. The 638.6 billion yen ($6.2 billion) shortfall surpassed November’s gap of 592.8 billion yen, the finance ministry said in Tokyo Monday. The deficit was smaller than the 685.4 billion yen median forecast of 27 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Comparable data go back to 1985. The yen’s slide and

SINGAPORE (AFP) ― Top Asian airlines’s profit margins are being eroded by a struggling air cargo business, even as they capitalize on increasing passenger demand, industry executives said Sunday.Languid global economic growth and freight capacity oversupply brought on by new deep-bellied planes is hammering carriers with dedicated cargo businesses, the insiders said ahead of the Singapore Airshow.“The biggest worry of the airlines industry right now is probably cargo,” Tony Tyler, director-gener

Barclays Plc, the U.K.’s second-largest bank by assets, is speaking with regulators, customers and British authorities about a possible criminal leak of client account information. A Barclays probe into the leak suggests the data is from 2008 or earlier and is linked to a financial-planning unit that was shut in 2011, Carey Withey, a company spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement. London-based Barclays is taking “all necessary steps” to contact the clients affected, she said. As many as 27,00

Google Inc. briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the second-most valuable company, trailing only Apple Inc. and underscoring the growing role of technology in the economy. Google, which became the world’s largest online advertiser through its dominant search engine, had a higher market capitalization during intraday trading Friday before falling back at the close in New York to a value of $395.4 billion compared to Exxon’s $395.7 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple had a ma

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Government requests for Twitter user information are on the rise, the messaging service said as it released figures while pressing for more transparency.“Over the past 24 months, we’ve received a 66 percent increase in requests for account information coming from more than 45 different countries impacting over 6,400 accounts around the world,” Twitter’s global legal policy manager Jeremy Kessel said.“The majority of global government requests for account information still come

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― As longtime Microsoft insider Satya Nadella becomes the company’s CEO, he is declaring a new focus on a “mobile-first, cloud-first world.” So far, he only has the latter half of the formula figured out.Microsoft is trying to catch rivals such as Apple, Google and Amazon, which are building a thriving ecosystem for mobile devices. At the same time, the company wants to expand its business as a provider of software and services over the Internet.Nadella, the Indian-born head of

Law will prompt over 2 million to quit jobs or cut hours: report

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $1.25 billion to settle a U.S. regulator’s claims the investment bank sold faulty mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that added to their losses in the financial crisis. Morgan Stanley took a $150 million charge, reducing fourth-quarter and full-year 2013 earnings by 5 cents a share, the New York-based bank said Tuesday in a regulatory filing. That would bring last year’s earnings per share to $1.36. The Federal Housing Finance Agency sued 18 ban

Google, Facebook, other companies disclose secret demands for information

MUMBAI (AFP) ― As Facebook celebrates its 10th birthday, one of its biggest challenges is to tap the mobile market in emerging Asian economies, where it can drive expansion after growth in the West tapers off.India is expected to overtake the United States as the country with most Facebook users in 2014, with its total number forecast to surge beyond the 150 million mark from the current 93 million level.But despite its rapid growth in parts of Asia, experts say Facebook cannot afford to be comp