Business

Yen slips on intervention threat, peso up after Philippine vote

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — The yen weakened Tuesday as Japanese officials ramped up a bid to tame the surging currency, while the Philippine peso ticked higher with anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte set to become the country’s new president. After soaring to 18-month highs against the dollar, the yen has sagged as officials threaten to intervene in currency markets to stop its “speculative” rally. On Tuesday, finance minister Taro Aso repeated warnings about possible action, after saying […]

Nokia posts loss for first joint results with Alcatel-Lucent

HELSINKI , Finland (AFP) — Nokia suffered a net loss of 513 million euros ($583 million) in the first quarter, the Finnish telecom equipment giant said Tuesday in its first earnings announcement after acquiring its French-American rival Alcatel-Lucent. The group’s sales fell by eight percent in its main network equipment business, but Nokia highlighted in a statement its operating margin increased by 1.7 points to 6.2 percent. In comparable figures, the company’s global revenue fell […]

Krispy Kreme bought by JAB, owner of big coffee brands

WASHINGTON ,United States (AFP) — US doughnut chain Krispy Kreme is being bought by the German investment group JAB Holding, folding it into JAB’s strong portfolio of European and North American coffee and coffee-shop brands. JAB said Monday that its unit JAB Beech would pay $1.35 billion to take the New York Stock Exchange-listed Krispy Kreme Doughnuts private. That will put the nearly 80-year-old doughnut and coffee chain, with more than 1,100 shops in 26 […]

Massive uncut diamond fetches ‘record $63 million’

STOCKHOLM , Sweden (AFP) — Canadian mining company Lucara Diamond on Monday announced the sale of a huge 813 carat diamond for a record $63 million (55 million euros), ahead of the sale of an even bigger one. The sale of the massive “Constellation” diamond was “the highest price ever achieved for a rough diamond, breaking all records,” CEO William Lamb said in a statement. The name of the buyer for the diamond, discovered in […]

Facebook wins China trademark suit

BEIJING, China (AFP) — US social network Facebook has won a trademark case in China against a local company, state media reported Monday, weeks after a court ruled against tech giant Apple in a similar suit over its iPhone brand. China’s trademark authorities in 2014 approved an application by a beverage factory to register the brand “face book” for products such as drinks and potato crisps, state broadcaster China Central Television’s English channel said on a […]

Toshiba hires new chief to steer past accounting scandal

Scandal-hit Toshiba on Friday appointed a new president to steer the vast conglomerate past a huge accounting scandal that has hammered its reputation. Company veteran Satoshi Tsunakawa, 60, a senior vice president who joined Toshiba in 1979, will replace incumbent chief Masashi Muromachi in June, Toshiba said. Muromachi became interim president in July last year after top executives resigned over the scandal. The company on Friday also named a new chairman, saying that new leadership […]

Self-driving cars in a fast lane: Fiat Chrysler chief

DETROIT , United States (AFP) — Self-driving cars could hit roads within five years, the head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said Friday, days after the company announced an alliance with Google parent Alphabet. Chief executive Sergio Marchionne declined to disclose financial details of the partnership or a timetable for building minivans that will expand the Internet company’s test fleet of autonomous vehicles. “It’s not sort of ‘pie-in-the-sky,’ the thing is real and it’s coming,” Marchionne […]

EU considers Philippines good investment destination

QUEZON City, Philippines – The European Union continues consider the Philippines as a good investment. destination. During the celebration of the EU delegations 25th anniversary in the Philippines, Ambassador Franz Jessen, head of the EU delegation, discussed the Philippines’ status as EU’s investment destination as well as giving an update to the EU’s development project in Mindanao. (Eagle News Service Described by Jay Paul Carlos, Video Editing by Aimee Mendoza and Uploaded by Vince Alvin […]

EU won’t sacrifice food safety for US trade deal: German minister

BERLIN, Germany (AFP) – The EU won’t sacrifice its high food safety standards for better US auto market access in a transatlantic trade deal being negotiated, a German minister said Friday. The comments by Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt were the latest criticism of the thorny negotiations toward sealing a wide-ranging pact that would create a free-trade zone covering 850 million people. Washington and Brussels want the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) completed this year […]

US economic slowdown hits hiring in April

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – by Paul HANDLEY US employers cut back hiring in April in the wake of the economy’s sharp downturn, raising worries of a protracted slowdown in the world’s largest economy. Net new jobs fell unexpectedly to the lowest level in seven months, with just 160,000 additional jobs generated, over 40,000 less than economists predicted, the Labor Department reported Friday. That was still a strong enough pace to continue absorbing new entrants to […]

Seven banks to pay $324 million to settle suit alleging interest rate manipulation

  WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – Seven big banks, including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank, have agreed to pay a total of $324 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of market manipulation of interest rates. The settlement Tuesday followed a federal judge’s ruling in March admitting the class action lawsuit brought by investors and pension funds against the banks. In all about 15 banks were named in the suit […]

Deutsche Bank targeted in Italian government bond probe

MILAN, Italy (AFP) – German banking giant Deutsche Bank is the target of a criminal probe into government bond market manipulation, the bank and plaintiffs said on Friday. Five former Deutsche Bank top managers are being investigated by a prosecutor in Trani, southern Italy, including its ex-chief executive Josef Ackermann, consumer associations Adusbef and Federconsumatori said after filing their legal complaint. They accuse Deutsche Bank of selling “massive” amounts of Italian government debt between January […]