The Korea Herald

U.S. judge approves $20m settlement in Facebook suit

Aug 27, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― A U.S. judge on Monday approved a deal in which Facebook will pay $20 million for using members “likes” as endorsements for ads.The pot of money is to be divvied up among attorneys, Internet privacy rights groups, and Facebook users who filed claims in the class-action lawsuit.U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg reasoned that the sum, a small fraction of the billions being sought in the case, was fair given the challenges of proving Facebook members were financially harmed
Largest investor Ackman sells entire J.C. Penney stake

Aug 27, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) ― J.C. Penney’s largest investor and former board member, William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, is selling his nearly 18 percent stake in the company. The move to sell 39.1 million shares of the company, announced in a regulatory filing late Monday afternoon, comes two weeks after Ackman resigned from J.C. Penney’s board as part of a deal to resolve an unusually public battle between the activist investor and the struggling department store operator. The news sent i
China industrial profit growth jumps in July

Aug 27, 2013

China’s industrial-profit growth rebounded in July, adding to signs that the world’s second-biggest economy is stabilizing after a two-quarter slowdown and an interbank lending squeeze in June. Net income rose 12 percent from a year earlier after gaining 6.3 percent in June, the statistics bureau said in Beijing Tuesday. Power, telecommunications, and auto manufacturing contributed to the increase, while coal miners’ profits slid. Tuesday’s data add to higher-than-forecast industrial production
India passes landmark food bill for poor

Aug 27, 2013

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won a rare victory by passing a landmark bill through the lower house of parliament that expands the world’s biggest food program, a key plank of his party’s re-election strategy. Frustrated by delays in parliament, Singh relied on an executive order last month to enact proposals that will give subsidized grain to two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion citizens. Seeking to avoid the embarrassment of the order lapsing in the middle of next month, the minority gover
U.S. to hit debt ceiling in mid-Oct.

Aug 27, 2013

The U.S. will hit the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling in mid-October, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a letter urging Congress to raise the limit “as soon as possible.” “Extraordinary measures are projected to be exhausted in the middle of October,” Lew said in the letter Monday to House Speaker John Boehner and other lawmakers. “At that point, the United States will have reached the limit of its borrowing authority, and Treasury would be left to fund the government with only the cash we have o
U.S. biotech giant Amgen to buy Onyx for $10.4b

Aug 26, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) ― Biotech drugmaker Amgen will buy cancer drug maker Onyx Pharmaceuticals for about $10.4 billion in cash in a deal that will add several cancer drugs to Amgen’s stable and add to its pipeline of new drugs. Amgen Inc. said Sunday it will acquire Onyx for $125 per share, and it expects to complete the deal at the beginning of the fourth quarter. The companies value the deal at $9.7 billion excluding Onyx’s cash, and Amgen said it will use $8.1 billion in committed bank loans to fina
China growth can sink closer to 6 percent on waning job needs

Aug 26, 2013

Chinese officials shifting the economy away from exports and investment can allow growth to sink closer to 6 percent within the next five years without triggering a destabilizing jump in unemployment. The pace of expansion needed to absorb new entrants to the labor force will slip to 6.4 percent in 2018 from 7.3 percent this year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists last month. Premier Li Keqiang is targeting a 7.5 percent expansion in 2013. China’s decli
Merkel says Greek ‘haircut’ could trigger ‘domino effect’

Aug 26, 2013

BERLIN (AFP) ― German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned a Greek debt write-down could spark a “domino effect of uncertainty” and scare off investors in the eurozone, in an interview released Sunday.Merkel’s comments to Focus news weekly come a month before elections in Europe’s biggest economy and days after the woes of debt-mired Greece lurched onto the campaign trail.“I am expressly warning against a haircut,” she said, according to a pre-released copy of the interview.“It could trigger a domino
Kuroda, Bean say policies spur growth

Aug 26, 2013

Central bankers from Japan and the U.K. predicted their new campaigns to encourage expansion will work, sustaining support for global growth even as the Federal Reserve considers a reduction in stimulus. As the annual gathering of central bankers and economists in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, drew to a close Saturday, Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda said his souped-up asset-buying “has started to exert effects” on the world’s third-largest economy. Bank of England Deputy Gov. Charlie Bean said the
Moody’s puts ratings of 6 banks on review

Aug 23, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) ― Moody’s Investors Service said Thursday that it has put the debt ratings of six of the largest U.S. banks on review due to changing federal policies for supporting distressed banks.The rating agency said in March that it would review its assumptions of how much support banks can expect to receive from the U.S. government if they hit hard times. Regulators are working with large U.S. banks to develop liquidation plans in case of another financial crisis. But Moody’s believes that
Eurozone activity ‘picks up sharply’

Aug 23, 2013

Eurozone activity picked up sharply in August to a 26-month high as the battered economy climbed out of a damaging recession, a closely watched survey showed on Thursday.Analysts said the report confirmed that the 17-nation eurozone was finally turning the corner after a downturn made worse by a debilitating debt crisis cost millions of jobs and tested the single currency bloc to the limit.But there was some concern that France, ranked second to powerhouse Germany in the eurozone, continued to s
Technical glitch halts Nasdaq trading for 3 hours

Aug 23, 2013

A mysterious glitch halted trading on the Nasdaq for three hours Thursday in the latest major electronic breakdown on Wall Street, embarrassing the stock exchange that hosts the biggest names in technology, including Apple, Microsoft and Google.The problem sent brokers racing to figure out what went wrong and raised new questions about the pitfalls of the electronic trading systems that have come to dominate U.S. stock markets.Nasdaq said only that the problem lay in its system for disseminating
Tesla may build Asia, Europe plants

Aug 22, 2013

Electric-carmaker Musk weighs overseas plants for mass-market car
Wells Fargo to eliminate 2,300 jobs

Aug 22, 2013

Wells Fargo & Co., the biggest U.S. home lender, is cutting 2,300 jobs from its mortgage-production unit because higher interest rates are reducing demand for refinancings, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Other smaller cuts had been made in the past few weeks around the country, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes haven’t been publicly disclosed. The cuts would equal about 20 percent of the 11,406 mortgage loan officers employed by the Sa
Fonterra ‘let country down’: N.Z. minister

Aug 22, 2013

New Zealand foreign minister assures China of commitment to food safety standards