‘NK could be next Chernobyl’; “If North Korea transfers its nuclear weapons to terrorist groups, it would pose a great challenge to world peace”; Park proposes Pyongyang as pilot case to make nuclear-free world

Updated : 2014-03-25 07:28

‘NK could be next Chernobyl’
Park proposes Pyongyang as pilot case to make nuclear-free world
By Kim Tae-gyu
THE HAGUE ― President Park Geun-hye proposed denuclearizing North Korea, Monday, as a pilot program to make a world free of nuclear weapons. Read more of this post

Asia to unite for stable gas supply; Flexible gas pricing to end Asian premiums

Updated : 2014-03-24 19:04

Asia to unite for stable gas supply
By Choi Kyong-ae

Asian buyers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will join forces to secure gas in the rapidly-growing Asian market, regional energy experts said in Korea, Monday. Read more of this post

As airlines rely on sophisticated calculations to harvest every drop of profit, routes from small and midsize city airports are increasingly being dropped

Smaller Airports Are Being Left Behind

MARCH 24, 2014

By JOE SHARKEY

MY son Chris is on a business trip in India this week, and his choice of how he got there from his home in Tucson underscores a reality in air service. More often these days, business travelers will choose to drive a few hours to a bigger airport because airline service is not as convenient at their local airport. Read more of this post

Backstage with Xerox CEO Ursula Burns; On the problems facing the world’s growing population, the challenges of M&A, and the one thing people don’t understand about Xerox

Backstage with Xerox CEO Ursula Burns

By Andrew Nusca March 24, 2014: 5:30 AM ET

On the problems facing the world’s growing population, the challenges of M&A, and the one thing people don’t understand about Xerox.

FORTUNE — Ahead of her keynote at her company’s inaugural Simple@Work conference in New York City, Xerox (XRX) chief executive Ursula Burns sat down with Fortune senior editor Andrew Nusca for a wide-ranging discussion on the motivation of overpopulation, popular perception of Xerox, and her biggest business challenge for 2014. Below are her words, edited and condensed for clarity. Read more of this post

Albemarle & Bond: a business you’d struggle to pawn; Breakneck expansion and the fall in the gold price have done for the high-street pawnbroker that has wiped out its shareholders

Albemarle & Bond: a business you’d struggle to pawn

Breakneck expansion and the fall in the gold price have done for the high-street pawnbroker that has wiped out its shareholders

By Alistair Osborne, Business Editor

8:35PM GMT 24 Mar 2014

So, what do you call something that you’d struggle to pawn? Albemarle & Bond, as it turns out. Read more of this post

Capital controls feared in Russia after $70bn flight; Investors are withdrawing money at a rapidly increasing rate amid sanctions; Europe’s dependence on Russia for energy is likely to ease after the US announced an export deal

Capital controls feared in Russia after $70bn flight

Investors are withdrawing money at a rapidly increasing rate amid escalating sanctions from the West

Europe’s dependence on Russia for energy is likely to ease after the US announced an export deal Photo: AFP/GETTY

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

8:16PM GMT 24 Mar 2014

Capital flight from Russia has spiked dramatically since President Vladimir Putin first sent troops into Crimea and may reach $70bn (£42bn) over the first quarter of the year, prompting fears that the country may soon have to impose capital controls to stem the loss. Read more of this post

Behind Indonesia’s Political Party Labels, a Lack of Substance

Behind Indonesia’s Political Party Labels, a Lack of Substance

By Vita A.D. Busyra on 10:01 am Mar 24, 2014

Prabowo Subianto rides his horse into a campaign rally for the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) on Sunday. (JG Photo/Afriadi Hikmal)

1.  The constellation of parties competing in next month’s legislative election appears to run the gamut of the political spectrum, from nationalist to populist to Islamic conservative. But dig a little deeper beneath the labels, analysts say, and the truth is that there is very little to distinguish any of the 12 parties vying for votes.

Read more of this post

Technical innovation sets off major transformation in Asia

Technical innovation sets off major transformation in Asia

Noel Quinn
March 25, 2014 1:00 am

Asian high-tech innovation, amplified by a growing appetite for research and development, is about to transform the region.

Much of the first phase of the Asian miracle has been driven by the production of high-tech goods – the tens of millions of smartphones, flat-screen televisions and computers that have flowed off production lines since 1980.  Read more of this post

China Banks Drained by Funds Called Vampires Seek Rules

China Banks Drained by Funds Called Vampires Seek Rules

It has been labeled a “blood-sucking vampire” by a prominent commentator on state-run television. Executives at China’s largest banks have called for regulators to curb its rapid expansion.

Jeremy Grantham: The Fed is killing the recovery

Jeremy Grantham: The Fed is killing the recovery

By Stephen Gandel, senior editor March 24, 2014: 5:00 AM ET

The money manager argues that the Fed’s interventions have ruined the very recovery it was supposed to stimulate and that the market is poised to disappoint investors.

FORTUNE — If you hate the Federal Reserve, you have a new hero. Read more of this post

Financial advisers explore exotic options; Plain vanilla is simply not on the menu any more, as advisers scan the markets in search of ways to generate yield in their clients’ portfolios

March 25, 2014 12:02 am

Financial advisers explore exotic options

By Tom Stabile

Plain vanilla is simply not on the menu any more, as advisers scan the markets in search of ways to generate yield in their clients’ portfolios. Advisers have set aside the standard Treasury bond in favour of a wider range of fixed income and equity options that can produce income, often swirling several flavours together. Read more of this post

City of London lures Chinese speakers to handle surge of work; “I would be very surprised if any other European city had anything like the same number of Chinese speakers working in its financial sector.”

March 24, 2014 2:38 pm

City of London lures Chinese speakers to handle surge of work

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

The number of Chinese speakers working in the City of London has jumped in the past year as London reinforces its position as the biggest renminbi trading hub outside China, research by a recruiter has found. Read more of this post

Australia’s luck runs out as China slows

March 25, 2014 4:35 am

Australia’s luck runs out as China slows

By Henny Sender

Reasons to be bearish on currency and country grow daily

There is only one good reason not to short the Aussie dollar: it is expensive. But the grounds for taking a bearish view on both the currency and the country become more compelling by the day. Read more of this post

China’s leaders must put reform pledges to the test; Economic protection means that Beijing forestalls innovation, writes Henry Paulson

March 24, 2014 5:40 pm

China’s leaders must put reform pledges to the test

By Henry Paulson

Economic protection means that Beijing forestalls innovation, writes Henry Paulson

Since President Xi Jinping took power 18 months ago, Beijing has adopted sweeping commitments to economic reform. These pledges include giving the market the “decisive” role in allocating resources, eliminating regulatory barriers that have stifled the private sector and enhancing China’s social safety net. Read more of this post

The pink movie star helping to fund a vast deficit; Despite ‘Abenomics’, government bonds have stayed calm – but critics say Tokyo cannot ignore its debt mountain forever

March 24, 2014 7:18 pm

Japanese debt: Still climbing

By Ben McLannahan

Despite ‘Abenomics’, government bonds have stayed calm – but critics say Tokyo cannot ignore its debt mountain forever

Last summer Takeshi Fujimaki ran for parliament on a platform of economic Armageddon. Japan’s debt was out of control, he told voters, and it was only a matter of time before everyone dumped government bonds, sending yields soaring and the yen skittering all the way to 1,000 against the dollar. Read more of this post

Trading Winds Blow Cold for Some Hot Stocks; ‘Momentum’ Shares Sell Off; Tesla and Twitter Lose Investor Favor

Trading Winds Blow Cold for Some Hot Stocks

‘Momentum’ Shares Sell Off; Tesla and Twitter Lose Investor Favor

CHRIS DIETERICH and MATT JARZEMSKY

March 24, 2014 7:17 p.m. ET

What goes up must come down, a lesson investors in some of the fastest-climbing U.S. stocks are learning the hard way.

Shares of companies including Tesla Motors Inc., TSLA -3.81% SolarCity Corp.SCTY -3.80% and Twitter Inc. TWTR -4.22% have fallen sharply this month. They are among the most popular “momentum” stocks, favorites of day traders but where profits are sometimes more of a hope than a reality. Read more of this post

Double bubble trouble: China’s property prices appear to be falling again

Double bubble trouble: China’s property prices appear to be falling again

Mar 22nd 2014 | HONG KONG | From the print edition

CAN bubbles ever pop twice? In late 2009 the world began to worry about a Chinese property bubble, symbolised by Ordos, a newly built city, bereft of citizens, in Inner Mongolia. In the spring of 2010 China’s government broadened its curbs on multiple home purchases and mortgage borrowing. The following spring, prices in nine big cities fell at last, according to one widely watched index. “The Great Property Bubble Of China May Be Popping” declared the Wall Street Journal in June of that year. Read more of this post

Citi Bike, Needing Millions of Dollars, Looks for Help

Citi Bike, Needing Millions of Dollars, Looks for Help

Leaders Seek to Rescue New York’s Bike-Share Program

LAURA KUSISTO, ELIOT BROWN and ANDREW TANGEL

March 20, 2014 10:08 p.m. ET

The harsh winter took a toll on the Citi Bike ridership numbers. Associated Press

Leaders of Citi Bike are moving quickly to raise tens of millions of dollars to rescue the popular bike-share program as it loses money, according to people familiar with the matter. Read more of this post

Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?

Mar 21, 2014

THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR

Will Stock Buybacks Bite Back?

JASON ZWEIG

As the bull market soars ever higher, investors face big competition for buying the shares of companies—and it comes from the companies themselves. Read more of this post

Another chapter in the long, slow decline of the chief operating officer

Another chapter in the long, slow decline of the chief operating officer

By Jason Karaian @jkaraian 10 hours ago

On its face, the retirement of Tim Fenton as chief operating officer (COO) at McDonald’s was a pretty routine corporate announcement. Executives come and go every day in the corporate world, and ill health forced Fenton (pictured above), after 41 years at the fast-food giant, to announce he was calling time on the globe-trotting lifestyle of a multinational manager this week. Read more of this post

Ontario Securities Commission enforcement leads to tripling of jail time

Ontario Securities Commission enforcement leads to tripling of jail time

Barbara Shecter | March 21, 2014 | Last Updated: Mar 21 5:52 PM ET
When it came to enforcing the rules, Canada’s largest capital markets watchdog was busier last year and put more people in jail for longer. Read more of this post

Korea looks to Germany for insight

Korea looks to Germany for insight

Defectors can aid in preparations

Mar 24,2014

To realize the unification of two Germanys, politicians in West Germany made bipartisan efforts to maintain an integrated and consistent position that transcended what they stood to gain politically, despite how strong their feelings may have been to the contrary. Read more of this post

Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs; Saying their own country stifles new business, French innovators are finding opportunity elsewhere – especially in London

Au Revoir, Entrepreneurs

By LIZ ALDERMANMARCH 22, 2014

Guillaume Santacruz, an aspiring French entrepreneur, brushed the rain from his black sweater and skinny jeans and headed down to a cavernous basement inside Campus London, a seven-story hive run by Google in the city’s East End. Read more of this post

Rwanda Reaches for New Economic Model; Rwanda looking to attract investors, not donors, to transform a tiny rural economy into a financial and high-tech hub for the region

Rwanda Reaches for New Economic Model

By NICHOLAS KULISHMARCH 23, 2014

Read more of this post

Scientists Face Prickly Situation as They Search for the Hairless Kiwi; Zespri Group is plowing millions of dollars into R&D of a kiwi with either an edible or easy-peel skin. NZ Effort to Grow Smoother Variety Proves Fruitless

Scientists Face Prickly Situation as They Search for the Hairless Kiwi

New Zealand Effort to Grow Smoother Variety Proves Fruitless; ‘Hints of Kerosene’

LUCY CRAYMER

March 23, 2014 10:35 p.m. ET

Kiwis have become a staple in everything from breakfast bowls to juice blends, but they aren’t the easiest food to eat. A New Zealand fruit company, Zespri, is working to create a skinless kiwi. Read more of this post

Lotte embraces English to prepare for its intended overseas expansion and catering to a growing number of foreign customers.

Posted : 2014-03-23 17:24

Updated : 2014-03-23 20:01

Lotte embraces English

By Park Ji-won
Lotte Department Store is conducting its first English proficiency contest for teams of executives this month, the retailer said Sunday.
The move reflects its desire to globalize, by training its staff to prepare for its intended overseas expansion and catering to a growing number of foreign customers. Read more of this post