By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

Published: April 24 2007 03:00 | Last updated: April 24 2007 03:00

"In its future business in media content, Toshiba will concentrate resources on network technology, broadcasting and telecommunication technology, and digital media products that can create a synergy with fields where the company already has established strengths," Toshiba said in a statement.

In December, Toshiba announced plans to sell its entire stake in Japanese label Toshiba EMI to British partner EMI Group, saying that music was no longer relevant to its business.

Porsche is to become Europe’s largest car and truck manufacturer after it increases its stake in Volkswagen above 30 per cent on Monday and prepares to launch a low-ball €35bn ($47bn) takeover offer.

The sports car manufacturer will raise its stake in VW by 3.7 per cent to 31 per cent, triggering a mandatory takeover offer. VW sells 60 times more cars than Porsche and has sales of €100bn against its smaller rival’s €6bn.

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Tighter credit standards among mortgage lenders might lower U.S. home prices by 10 percent this year and push the economy into recession, a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst said in a report.

New Century Financial Corp., the second-biggest subprime lender and other mortgage companies may fail as the number of customers falling behind on payments rose to a four-year high. More than 20 subprime lenders have closed or sought buyers since the start of 2006 and bank regulators are pushing lenders to raise credit standards.

``Even if the pullback is only aimed at the subprime market, there could well be potentially significant further drags on home prices, construction activity and of course consumer spending growth,'' Merrill's David Rosenberg said in a note to investors.

Declines in home prices would have an effect on everything from furniture and appliance sales to landscaping and the price of copper. That would drive unemployment above 5 percent by the end of the year and the probability of a recession to ``very close to 100 percent'' unless the Federal Reserve cut benchmark interest rates by a full percentage point, Rosenberg said.

``What we are concerned about most are the knock-on effects from the pullback,'' Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg has long had a pessimistic view of the U.S. economy. In May 2005, he predicted the Fed would stop lifting interest rates at 3.25 percent and be forced to reduce them by the end of 2006. The Fed didn't pause until August last year -- at 5.25 percent. In October, Rosenberg forecast the Fed would cut rates by 50 basis points before the end of March.

Housing Inventory

In a March 1 report, CreditSights Inc. said rising mortgage defaults by subprime borrowers may add more than 533,000 homes to the market. That would increase inventory of new and existing of homes by about 13 percent. The National Association of Realtors and the U.S. Commerce Department said 4.09 million homes were for sale in January.

Rosenberg estimated that subprime loans boosted home sales by at least 20 percent annually and the loss of that market might shave half a percentage point from the Gross Domestic Product.

The Fed raised its benchmark rate to 5.25 percent in June, compared with an average target of 3.2 percent in 2005, a year when net new mortgage borrowing soared by a record $1 trillion.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has identified 1 percent to 2 percent as his preferred range for the inflation gauge most closely monitored by the central bank. The measure, which excludes food and energy costs, rose 2.3 percent in the 12 months to February.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast the Fed will hold the rate through the third quarter, according to the median estimate.

`Short-Term Shock'

David Nissen, who as chief executive officer of GE Money oversees WMC Mortgage, the fifth-largest subprime lender in the U.S., said tightening credit solved the structural issues that caused the current mortgage crisis. WMC contributed less than $100 million of the parent company's $20.8 billion in net income last year.

``This is a short-term shock,'' Nissen said. ``By the end of 2007 this will have played out.''

Burbank, California-based WMC Mortgage, General Electric Co.'s U.S. mortgage unit, fired 20 percent of its staff last week and stopped making loans to borrowers with low credit scores.

``Borrowers will feel the pinch over the next couple of years,'' Nissen said. ``There's lots of liquidity in the market and as long as jobs hang in there and there's low unemployment, the economy will be good in the United States, not great.''

Mortgage borrowing rose by $792.5 billion last year, the smallest gain since 2002, according to the Fed's quarterly Flow of Funds report. The increase last quarter was the smallest since 1998, as two years of Fed interest-rate increases depressed loan demand and slowed the housing industry.

``The market is working,'' Doug Duncan, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association, said yesterday as the Washington-based group released is quarterly report on delinquencies and foreclosures.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sharon L. Crenson in New York at screnson@bloomberg.net 

article taken from www.bloomberg.com

"Starbucks must move out of the imperial palace immediately, and it can no longer be allowed to taint China's national culture," Xinhua news agency quoted Jiang Hongbin, a delegate to the current National People's Congress, as saying.

"As long as it stays in the imperial palace, it poses a challenge to our traditional culture."

Jiang, who hails from China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang, said that he had tabled a motion to kick Starbucks out of the 587-year old imperial palace, the report said.

However, no record of the motion could be found amid more than 1,000 proposals tabled at this year's 12-day session of the rubber stamp parliament.

Jiang's comments follow a noisy Internet campaign launched earlier this year by television personality Rui Chenggang that garnered up to a half a million supporters in favor of shutting down the Starbucks store.

The coffee shop has been embroiled in controversy since it opened at the site in 2000.

According to Xinhua, up to seven million visitors visit the imperial palace every year.

Rent paid by Starbucks is used for maintenance of the palace, according to museum managers, the report said.

"But we should know not everything can be exchanged for money even in the market economy. The Forbidden City is one of the untradable products as its value cannot be measured with money," Jiang said.

article from www.yahoo7.com.au

Airbus said it would not force any compulsory redundancies but unions have pledged to fight the cuts.

Airbus boss Louis Gallois said the firm was "facing huge challenges" and "was not efficient enough".

Factory options

Mr Gallois said the prolonged weakness of the US dollar had made the restructuring necessary, while the production delays to the flagship A380 superjumbo project had provided the "trigger" for the cutbacks.

Half of the 10,000 cuts will come from temporary staff and sub-contractors not having their contracts renewed.

Mr Gallois said the job cuts would be "fairly shared" between Airbus's four national partners.

Airbus is reviewing the future of three of its plants, at Laupheim, Saint-Nazaire and Varel, with options including their sale to suppliers or management.

It is also seeking investment partners for sites at Filton in the UK, Meaulte in France and Nordenham in Germany.

Airbus said the changes would reduce the time it took to develop new planes from seven-and-a-half years to six years, improve customer service and aircraft reliability.

Union response

Union officials, who were informed of the proposals earlier on Wednesday, expressed anger at the scale of the cuts.

"We totally oppose the closure of any site and we won't accept any firings," said European Metalworkers Federation head Peter Scherrer.

French workers earlier downed tools in protest at the firm's plans to review the future of two of its sites.

Airbus says the proposed changes will speed up production

EADS, Airbus' Franco-German parent, approved the controversial plan on Monday.

Disagreement between Germany and France, both home to key Airbus factories, has delayed progress on the restructuring.

France - home to the firm's Toulouse headquarters - will be worst affected by the cuts, both at individual factories and in central management and administrative functions.

But, at the same time, some work will be transferred from Hamburg to Toulouse.

Political reaction

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she regretted the job losses but said the proposals ensured "a balanced distribution of risks and opportunities" across different sites.

In France, presidential candidate Segolene Royal said she would seek to freeze the job cuts if elected, but rival Nicolas Sarkozy said politicians should stay out of the company's affairs.

In Britain, more than 10% of jobs at the firm's factories in Filton, Bristol, and Broughton, North Wales are set to go.

But it is understood the Filton plant has won extra work on part of the wing for the new Airbus A350, which uses hi-tech composite materials.

The new contracts would help Airbus in the UK maintain its position as a specialist in the design and manufacture of aircraft wings.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said this would add "valuable new capability" to the country's aerospace industry.

Politicians from Germany, France, the UK and Spain have been lobbying Airbus bosses furiously in recent weeks in an effort to protect jobs in their countries.

Airbus said its current financial situation was "unsustainable".

Production problems with the giant A380 have pushed back deliveries of the plane by two years and cost Airbus about 5bn euros (£3.4bn $6.6bn). 


article taken from www.bbc.co.uk

Dow industrials close at highest point ever as do utilities and transportation averages S& P 500 hits 6-1/2 year high.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE


Google Inc.'s free e-mail service will shed the final remnants of its invitation-only restrictions Wednesday, extending the reach of an increasingly popular product that has emerged as a vital cog in the online search leader's expansion efforts.

Invitations will no longer be required to join the nearly 3-year-old " Gmail" service in the United States, Canada, Mexico and a swath of Asian and South American countries where the Mountain View-based company previously limited the number of users.

With those restrictions now lifted, Gmail will be open to all comers worldwide for the first time since Google unveiled the service on April Fool's Day in 2004.

" It's a pretty momentous time for Gmail," said Keith Coleman, Google's product manager for the service.

Although it will no longer require invitations to sign up, Gmail is retaining its " beta," or test, status, signaling that Google still considers the service to be a work in progress.

Making Gmail more widely available is important to Google because other key products like instant messaging and calendar management are tied into the e-mail service, company co-founder Sergey Brin said an interview. " It has become a real cornerstone for us."

Because Gmail users often remain logged into Google's Web site while they conduct online searches, the service also helps the company's engineers learn more about individual preferences -- knowledge that can help deliver more relevant search results and foster more loyalty.

The decision to lift all invitation requirements on Gmail signals Google finally believes it has adequate computing capacity to accommodate the generous amount of free storage provided by the e-mail service after investing heavily in additional data centers. Gmail offers each account at least 2.8 gigabytes of storage -- enough to fill about 1.4 million pages.

In 2006 alone, Google's capital expenditures totaled $1.9 billion, with much of the money going toward additional computing capacity. It's an investment that Google could easily afford, having earned $3.1 billion on revenue of $10.6 billion last year.

Now that Google has more computing muscle, Brin said the company will start selling additional storage capacity to e-mail users with extraordinary needs. Google still hasn't figured out the specifics, but Brin indicated the e-mail storage and fees to be introduced later this year would be similar to Google's photo-hosting service that charges $25 annually for 6.25 gigabytes and $500 annually for 250 gigabytes.

" We can't afford to give away everything for free," Brin said.

Google tries to make money off its e-mail service by electronically scanning the content of the communications so it can display advertising links tied to the topics being discussed.

Gmail's advertising methods have raised some privacy concerns and turned off some potential users who don't like the idea of their e-mail discussions being perused or commercialized.

Nevertheless, Gmail has been growing rapidly as Google gradually opened the service in other parts of the world and made it increasingly easy to wrangle an invitation where the restrictions were still in effect.

Like the other major providers of free e-mail, Google won't specify how many users it has. But statistics compiled by the research firm comScore Inc. indicate Google has surpassed AOL to become the world's third largest e-mail service behind longtime leaders Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

In December, Gmail attracted 60 million unique visitors, a 71 percent increase from the prior year, according to comScore Networks Inc.'s World Metrix. Despite that progress, Gmail remains far behind Yahoo Inc.'s free e-mail, which increased 11 percent to 249 million unique visitors and Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail, which rose 13 percent to 236 million, comScore said.

Representatives for Yahoo and Microsoft, which don't require invitations, declined to comment specifically on the broader access to Gmail.

Google seems unlikely to catch Yahoo's and Microsoft's competing e-mail services any time soon, particularly since so many people are reluctant to change their existing addresses. But Gmail still " should gain some serious traction this year," predicted Jack Flanagan, a comScore analyst who follows the e-mail market.

Brin said he doesn't especially care if Gmail ever becomes the largest e-mail service. " The trick isn't getting more people to use the service. The trick is to get more people to use the service more effectively."

Even though Gmail hasn't been universally available, its existence already has affected just about anyone with a free e-mail account by pressuring the market leaders to dramatically increase the storage capacity of individual mailboxes.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo now provides 1 gigabyte of free e-mail storage while Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft offers 2 gigabytes per e-mail account. " We will continue to listen to Yahoo users worldwide to evaluate our storage offering and to make sure our users always have as much as they need," Yahoo spokeswoman Karen Mahon said.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft were giving away less than 10 megabytes of e-mail storage when Gmail launched.

" We have already made e-mail better for everyone in the world," Google's Coleman boasted.

Since Gmail's arrival, both Yahoo and Microsoft have introduced upgraded versions of their free e-mail services that also remain in the beta phase. In another move that mimicked Gmail, Yahoo this week introduced a feature that allows instant messaging chats to be conducted within its e-mail service.

ARTICLE TAKEN FROM WWW.BUSINESSWEEK.COM