PARIS (AFP) ― A flood of top-end properties are hitting the market as businessmen seek to leave France before stiff tax hikes hit, real estate agents and financial advisors say.“It’s nearly a general panic. Some 400 to 500 residences worth more than one million euros ($1.3 million) have come onto the Paris market,” said managers at Daniel Feau, a real-estate broker that specialises in high-end property.While it is not yet on the scale of the exodus of rich French after the election of Socialist

U.S. panel warns against doing business with Huawei and ZTE due to security threatWASHINGTON (AP) ― American companies should avoid doing business with China’s two leading technology firms because they pose a national security threat to the United States, the House Intelligence Committee is warning in a report to be issued Monday.The panel says U.S. regulators should block mergers and acquisitions in this country by Huawei Technologies Ltd. and ZTE Corp, among the world’s leading suppliers of t

India’s rupee and Malaysia’s ringgit will lead declines in Asian currencies this quarter as the global slowdown damps export demand, according to Oversea- Chinese Banking Corp., the most-accurate forecaster. The rupee and the ringgit, which led gains in the three months through September, will drop 2.5 percent and 2.2 percent against the dollar, respectively, by year-end, said OCBC, which had the closest estimates in the last six quarters as measured by Bloomberg Rankings. Westpac Banking Corp.,

Foxconn Technology Group workers returned to the assembly line in Zhengzhou, China, that makes Apple Inc.’s iPhone 5 after walking off their jobs Saturday, advocacy group China Labor Watch said. A dispute occurred between the production and quality teams at the factory and that was resolved by Saturday afternoon, Simon Hsing, a spokesman for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Foxconn’s flagship unit, said in a phone interview. “Three to four thousand” production employees walked off the job at the

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The U.S. unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time since the month President Barack Obama took office, a surprising lift for both the economy and his re-election hopes in the final weeks of the campaign. The rate, the most-watched measure of the country’s economic health, tumbled to 7.8 percent in September from 8.1 percent in August. It fell because a government survey of households found that 873,000 more people had jobs, the biggest jump since January 2003

BERLIN (AFP) ― A senior official of the European Central Bank said Sunday he saw no risk of inflation rising in the 17-member eurozone in spite of the current debt crisis.“I don’t see an increased risk of the currency depreciating,” executive ECB board member Joerg Asmussen told the weekly Bild am Sonntag.Asmussen said ECB forecasts acted on the assumption that “inflation will again fall below two percent next year.”The ECB also guarantees that the euro will be a stable currency in the future, h

BERLIN (AFP) ― The International Monetary Fund has cut its global growth forecasts for this year and 2013 and called on politicians in the eurozone and the U.S. to take “decisive” steps to restore confidence, a German newspaper said Friday.Citing excerpts from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook to be released early this week, the Handelsblatt business daily said that the Washington-based body predicted world economic growth of 3.3 percent in 2012 and 3.6 percent in 2013.In July, the IMF issued for

ECB chief says Spain has made ‘significant  progress’ toward getting its finances under controlFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ― European Central Bank president Mario Draghi nudged Spain and its European partners to take up bank’s offer of help with the country’s high debt costs, reassuring Madrid that the conditions for getting the assistance “don’t need to be punitive.” The ECB chief said at a news conference in Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia, Thursday that Spain had made “significant progress” toward gett

GENEVA (AFP) ― A deal to boost international trade is closer to consensus than it has been for months, a source close to the World Trade Organization said Wednesday.“The chances of reaching an agreement are much greater today than six months or a year ago,” said the source, referring to trade facilitation talks known as the Doha Round.The free trade deal, a feature of the WTO agenda since the organization opened its doors in 1995, has never been sealed as rich and emerging nations failed to brid

MADRID (AFP) ― A “bad bank” that will mop up toxic assets in Spain’s stricken financial sector is to be launched in December, the government said Wednesday.Spain’s eurozone partners pushed Madrid into creating the institution, which will be tasked with buying up bad assets choking Spanish banks since a 2008 property market collapse. “It will acquire the assets at prudently calculated prices and will dynamize the housing market in Spain,” Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told a parliamentary fina

LISBON (AP) ― Portugal is tightening its belt another notch, with the government announcing Wednesday steep income tax hikes to reduce the bailed-out country’s debt load despite mounting discontent over austerity measures.Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said an “enormous increase in taxes” next year was aimed at meeting the 2013 deficit target of 4.5 percent, even as the country remains mired in deep recession.Gaspar said the government is cutting the number of income tax brackets in 2013 to five