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| Sharp eyes another share offering, could raise $2 billion: media Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 08:41 PM PDT  Sharp Corp, Japan's largest display maker, is considering another issue of new shares that could raise around 200 billion yen ($1.97 billion) to replenish its depleted capital base, the Asahi newspaper reported on Sunday. Sharp is aiming to launch the offering during the current financial year to March 2015 after carrying out restructuring at its flagship Kameyama LCD display factory and putting its earnings on a solid recovery path, the newspaper said. Full Story | Top |
| Truck in deadly California crash on fire before collision: witness Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 08:39 PM PDT  By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - A witness reported that a FedEx tractor-trailer that crashed into a bus in northern California on Thursday killing 10 people was on fire before impact, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Saturday. The driver of a car that had passed the bus just before the crash said flames were coming from beneath the cab of the truck, board member Mark Rosekind told a Saturday evening news conference. The truck clipped the car and then hit the bus, Rosekind said. Among those killed were five teen-aged students en route to a college recruitment event, along with the drivers of the bus and truck. Full Story | Top |
| Australia says progress towards G20 growth target "unacceptable" Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 08:00 PM PDT  PERTH, Australia, April 13 - Slow progress towards meeting economic growth targets set by the Group of 20 bloc of advanced and developing nations this year is "unacceptable", Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said on Sunday. G20 finance ministers had pledged to have "real and effective plans to lift the global economy by a further 2 percent" before they meet in Australia in September but were only one-tenth of the way there, he said. "The proposals put forward by nations so far have been unacceptable and they only meet 10 percent of our goal," Hockey told Australian Broadcasting Corp. TV after talks in Washington. Hockey coordinated the talks, with Australia holding the G20 presidency. Full Story | Top |
| New York district attorney investigating Port Authority: media reports Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 07:58 PM PDT  By David Jones NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - The Manhattan district attorney has issued a subpoena seeking correspondence from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's administration and records from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey relating to several major construction projects, according to media reports. The subpoena, issued in March, seeks a wide range of records from current and former officials from the Port Authority and Christie's administration about a number of projects, the Wall Street Journal, citing an unidentified source, reported on its website. The New York Times, also citing an unnamed source in a report on its website on Saturday, said District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr's rackets division is leading the investigation. The reports follow a scandal over the September closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge which connects New Jersey to northern Manhattan, ostensibly for a traffic study which never materialized, and which caused extensive delays for four days in the town of Fort Lee. Full Story | Top |
| French foreign minister meets Raul Castro on historic visit to Cuba Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 05:45 PM PDT  By Marc Frank HAVANA (Reuters) - France's foreign minister met with Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday during the first visit to the island by such a high-ranking French official in 31 years and a sign of the quickening pace of improving ties between the European Union and Havana. Laurent Fabius said he discussed politics, human rights, market-oriented reforms in Cuba and bilateral relations in what he characterized as "a long conversation" with Castro. Earlier in the day, Fabius met with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez, various Cabinet ministers, Cardinal Jaime Ortega and French businessmen. Since Fabius took office in 2012, he has tried to shift more of France's diplomatic focus toward winning contracts in markets where French firms are traditionally weak, as Paris looks to find growth opportunities overseas. Full Story | Top |
| Beijing rejects IMF's hard-landing warning for China's economy Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 05:40 PM PDT  By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Chinese official hit back on Saturday at International Monetary Fund warnings that China's economy faced the danger of a hard landing due to poor asset quality, saying the government was taking action to deal with financial risk. Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said China worked closely with the IMF but did not agree with all of its analysis. "In general, we think they are a very professional financial institution, but some of the methodology used and some traditional thinking, they also need reform," he told a small group of Western journalists on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. If your policy suggestion is (to be) a valuable suggestion, you must base it on reality." IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned of the risk of what she termed a "hard landing" in China, the world's second-largest economy, and negative repercussions on other emerging markets in her Global Policy Agenda released at the start of the meetings in Washington on Thursday. Full Story | Top |
| Strong quake hits near Solomon Islands; tsunami warning cancelled Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 03:27 PM PDT (Reuters) - A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck near the Solomon Islands on Sunday morning, triggering a tsunami warning that was later cancelled, according to U.S. government agencies, and there were no immediate reports of damage. The quake was centered 100 km (60 miles) south of Kira Kira on the island of Makira at a depth of 29 km (18 miles), according to the U.S. Geological Survey. "So far we have received no reports of damage," said Constable Taylor Fugo from Kira Kira police. They all went up the hills and have been watching and waiting for advice." A tsunami warning for the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu was cancelled after only very small tsunami wave activity, just a couple of centimetres, had been measured at two reading stations near the epicentre, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said. Full Story | Top |
| Draghi says a stronger euro would trigger looser ECB policy Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 01:54 PM PDT  By Jan Strupczewski and Krista Hughes WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will ease monetary policy further if the euro keeps strengthening, President Mario Draghi said on Saturday as world finance chiefs ramped up pressure on Europe to ward off deflation. In the clearest signal yet the ECB was prepared to launch a stimulative asset-purchase program, Draghi said the euro's exchange rate had become increasingly important to policy and would act as a trigger. "The strengthening of the exchange rate would require further monetary policy accommodation. If you want policy to remain as accommodative as now, a further strengthening of the exchange rate would require further stimulus," he told a news conference. Full Story | Top |
| Investigators focus on cause of deadly California crash Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 12:21 PM PDT By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - Investigators were focusing on Saturday on what caused a FedEx tractor-trailer to collide with a bus in a fiery crash in northern California that killed 10 people, five of them teenage students en route to a college recruitment event. It remained unclear whether the FedEx driver was somehow distracted or lost consciousness, or whether a mechanical failure occurred when his truck swerved across the median of Interstate 5 and slammed head-on into the motor coach full of students from the Los Angeles area on Thursday evening. The California Highway Patrol also raised the possibility that a separate collision on the truck's side of the highway might have been a factor. Early highway patrol accounts of the accident said the truck side-swiped a car after crossing the center divider, before hitting the bus. Full Story | Top |
| French foreign minister on historic visit to Cuba Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 11:44 AM PDT  By Marc Frank HAVANA (Reuters) - France's foreign minister arrived in Cuba on Saturday for a brief but historic visit, the first by such a high-ranking French official in 31 years and a sign of the quickening pace of improving ties between the European Union and Havana. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez upon arrival, and was scheduled to meet with Cardinal Jaime Ortega and then French businessmen. Rodriguez met with Laurent in Paris last month. "We want to strengthen our ties with South America and particularly with Cuba," Fabius said, before sitting down for talks with Rodriguez. Full Story | Top |
| China backs aid for Ukraine, worried by IMF funding capacity Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 09:16 AM PDT By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China said on Saturday it backed IMF financial support for Ukraine, but expressed concern about the global lender's funding capacity given the failure of the U.S. Congress to ratify a program of reforms for the institution. Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told a small group of Western journalists on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank spring meetings in Washington it was a "worry" that more than 85 percent of IMF lending was currently focused on Europe. Zhu highlighted the importance of reacting quickly to any problems that arise in regions outside Europe, adding: "That is why IMF financial capacity has become so important." Zhu said China was worried about the potential impact of the Ukraine crisis, especially on Europe, which was already facing risk from deflation. Full Story | Top |
| Fed's Kocherlakota touts tax cuts for business spending Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 08:52 AM PDT  (Reuters) - Cutting taxes on business investment is an effective form of economic stimulus that could go a long way toward mending the damage from the financial crisis and Great Recession, a top Federal Reserve official said on Saturday. In prepared remarks that did not touch on monetary policy, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Narayana Kocherlakota told a National Bureau of Economic Research conference that even apparently permanent damage to the economy can be reversed if policymakers are willing to take appropriate steps. The U.S. economy was hit hard by the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the ensuing recession, with output last year 13 percent below where it had been before the crisis. Although high unemployment has received the most policy attention, spurring unprecedented amounts of monetary accommodation from the U.S. central bank, the biggest drag on growth has actually been a decline in business capital, according to research presented at the conference by Stanford University professor Robert Hall. Full Story | Top |
| Diners in hepatitis A scare at suburban New York restaurant Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 08:49 AM PDT Hundreds of diners at an Italian restaurant in suburban New York may have been exposed to hepatitis A in the last few weeks after a food handler there was found to have the liver disease, the county health department said. People who ate at or who were working at La Fontana restaurant in the village of Nyack, about 20 miles north of Manhattan, between March 19 and April 1 may have been exposed to the virus, the Rockland County health department said. The department is urging diners and employees who were at the restaurant between March 29 and April 1 who have not previously been vaccinated to obtain a free hepatitis A vaccination. The vaccination is only effective if taken within 14 days of exposure and so will be of no use to people who were at La Fontana earlier in March, the department said. Full Story | Top |
| Fading signals add urgency to search for missing Malaysian jet Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 07:24 AM PDT  By Swati Pandey PERTH (Reuters) - The search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner resumed on Saturday, five weeks after the plane disappeared from radar screens, amid fears that batteries powering signals from the black box recorder on board may have died. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott warned on Friday that signals picked up during the search in the remote southern Indian Ocean, believed to be "pings" from the black box recorders, were fading. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared soon after taking off on March 8 from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing with 227 passengers and 12 crew on board, triggering a multinational search that is now focused on the Indian Ocean. Search officials say they are confident they know the approximate position of the black box recorder, although they have determined that the latest "ping', picked up by searchers on Thursday, was not from the missing aircraft. Full Story | Top |
| Malaysia flight's co-pilot tried to make cellphone call-report Saturday, Apr 12, 2014 07:10 AM PDT Investigators probing the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 suspect that the co-pilot of the jetliner tried to make a call with his cellphone after the plane was diverted from its scheduled route, Malaysia's New Straits Times reported sources as saying on Saturday. The newspaper cited unidentified investigative sources as saying the attempted call from co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid's phone was picked up by a cellphone tower as the plane was about 200 nautical miles northwest of the west coast state of Penang. Full Story | Top |
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