The Korea Herald

PlayStation Vita hits Japan stores

Dec 18, 2011

TOKYO (AP) ― Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hit stores in Japan on Saturday as thousands of game enthusiasts lined up early in the morning to be among the first to buy it.Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is predicting brisk sales, even though the launch may have missed some holiday shoppers. A successful debut would help the company offset the rest of its struggling business. Sony projects a loss of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year through March 2012, which wo
Slow recovery for flood-hit Thai plants

Dec 18, 2011

AYUTTHAYA (AFP) ― Piles of rubbish, rusting furniture and discarded machinery litter one of Thailand’s top high-tech parks, a former symbol of economic prowess laid to waste by weeks of flooding.Many of the companies located in the country’s industrial heartland say it will be several months at least before their operations return to normal. Investor confidence in the kingdom is likely to take even longer to recover.At least one major manufacturer, Sanyo Semiconductor, is pulling the plug on its
WTO Doha trade talks end deadlocked

Dec 18, 2011

The World Trade Organization wrapped up a ministerial meeting Saturday deadlocked on the Doha Round of negotiations for a global free trade pact, and some ministers calling for a new path.Conference chairman and Nigerian Trade Minister Olusegun Aganga summarized the ministers’ regret at the impasse in a concluding statement.The WTO’s 153 member states agreed to “more fully explore different negotiating approaches” and “intensify their efforts to look into ways” to overcome the stalemate, said Ag
Moody‘s downgrades Belgium’s debt by 2 notches

Dec 18, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) -- Moody’s Investors Services on Friday downgraded Belgium’s credit rating by two notches, citing strains on eurozone countries as they try to finance their heavy debt loads amid the regional financial crisis. The ratings agency cut Belgium’s local- and foreign-currency government bond ratings to “Aa3” from Aa1," with a negative outlook. The ratings remain investment grade. Moody’s said the downgrade comes as soaring borrowing costs strain the finances of heavily indebted countries
Senate OKs payroll tax cut, huge budget bill

Dec 18, 2011

U.S. Senate approves 2-month extension of payroll tax cut and jobless benefits, finishes spending billWASHINGTON (AP) ― The Senate voted Saturday to temporarily avert a Jan. 1 payroll tax increase and benefit cutoff for the long-time unemployed, forcing a reluctant President Barack Obama to make an election-year choice between unions and environmentalists over whether to build an oil pipeline through the heart of the country. With the still-reeling economy serving as a backdrop, the Senate’s 89-
U.S. inflation eases, creates space for Fed stimulus

Dec 18, 2011

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ― U.S. consumer prices were flat in November as Americans paid less for cars and gasoline, a further sign of a cooldown in inflation that could give the Federal Reserve more room to help a still weak economy. The Labor Department said Friday the Consumer Price Index was unchanged last month. Economists had expected an increase of 0.1 percent. Prices spiked earlier in the year, but the report showed the trend has shifted. Over the past 12 months, prices have risen 3.4 percent
Central bank row halts Hungary rescue talks

Dec 18, 2011

BUDAPEST (Reuters) ―The EU and IMF on Friday cut short talks with Hungary aimed at paving the way for aid discussions, pressuring the government to amend a controversial central bank bill or face possible financing problems next year.Hungary’s center-right government, which broke ties with international lenders in 2010 and pursued unorthodox policies to boost the economy, said in a U-turn last month it would reopen discussions with the IMF and EU amid a deepening eurozone debt crisis, which put
GM ‘cannot support’ plans to save Saab

Dec 18, 2011

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Bankruptcy proceedings remain on the cards for troubled Swedish car maker Saab after former owner General Motors Corp. said Saturday that proposals presented so far to salvage the troubled brand are unacceptable and won’t be supported. Trollhattan-based Saab, bought by Dutch group Swedish Automobile NV in 2010, faces a court-hearing Monday to determine whether it will exit bankruptcy protection. That means that if Saab doesn’t present a viable survival plan, bankruptcy proceedi
Regulators sue former top Fannie, Freddie execs

Dec 18, 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters) ― Six former top executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were sued by U.S. regulators on charges of misleading investors about the mortgage finance companies’ exposure to risky home loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.The case is one of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s biggest actions against high-level financial industry executives, although the regulator did not specify a dollar amount for damages in the alleged fraud. Many lawmakers consider Fanni
GM ‘cannot support’ plans to save Saab

Dec 18, 2011

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Bankruptcy proceedings remain on the cards for troubled Swedish car maker Saab after former owner General Motors Corp. said Saturday that proposals presented so far to salvage the troubled brand are unacceptable and won’t be supported. Trollhattan-based Saab, bought by Dutch group Swedish Automobile NV in 2010, faces a court-hearing Monday to determine whether it will exit bankruptcy protection. That means that if Saab doesn’t present a viable survival plan, bankruptcy proceedi
‘N.K. agrees to suspend uranium enrichment’

Dec 18, 2011

North Korea has agreed to suspend its enrichment of uranium for nuclear weapons, local reports said Saturday. Citing an unidentified diplomatic source, Yonhap News reported the two countries reached the agreement during recent talks held in Beijing. The sides “reached the agreement based on North Korea’s pledge to implement initial measures of denuclearization that include a suspension of its uranium enrichment program,” Yonhap said. The United States, in return, has agreed to provide up to 240,
Morgan Stanley to cut 1,600 jobs globally in 2012

Dec 16, 2011

Morgan Stanley, the financial firm whose shares have declined 45 percent this year, plans to cut about 1,600 jobs amid an industrywide drop in revenue from investment banking and trading.Reductions will occur in the first quarter of 2012 at all levels of the firm, Mark Lake, a company spokesman, said in an interview Thursday. The figure amounts to about 2.6 percent of the 62,648 employees New York-based Morgan Stanley had at the end of September.Chief Executive Officer James Gorman is grappling
Unemployment claims at 3.5-year low in U.S.

Dec 16, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The job market is healthier than at any time since the end of the Great Recession.The number of people filing for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest since May 2008, a sign that the waves of corporate layoffs that have defined the past few years are all but over.“This is unexpectedly great news,” said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.It will take an additional step ― robust hiring, not just the end of layoffs ― to bring the 8.6 percent un
Gates rules out return to Microsoft helm

Dec 15, 2011

SYDNEY (AFP) -- Bill Gates on Thursday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.”Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the U.S. software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he was busy working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ”and that will be what
OPEC agrees to increase oil production

Dec 15, 2011

OPEC decided to increase its production ceiling to 30 million barrels a day, the first change in three years, moving the group’s target nearer to current output as it grapples with rising exports from post-war Libya. The new quota is for all members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, including Iraq and Libya, and compares with actual November production from those 12 nations of 30.37 million barrels a day, according to OPEC estimates. The target will be reviewed at its next me