The Korea Herald

Google unveils latest social networking feat

Jun 29, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) ― Online search leader Google Inc. is taking yet another stab at social networking, as it tries to go up against Facebook in this wildly popular and lucrative segment of the Internet. This time the project is called Google+ and it aims to make online sharing more like real life. “We think people communicate in very rich ways,” said Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering...
Combative new IMF chief takes on new challenge

Jun 29, 2011

PARIS (AP) -- Christine Lagarde has traveled tirelessly to save the euro and blazed a trail for women from Chicago to Paris in halls of power long dominated by men. The French finance minister with a broad grin and long stride now faces her toughest job yet: heading the International Monetary Fund. She takes over a post vacated by a man accused of attempting to rape a New York hotel maid just as...
Lagarde poised to become next IMF chief

Jun 28, 2011
Australian woman expected to be world’s richest person

Jun 28, 2011

Gina Rinehart Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, is also projected to become the wealthiest person in the world, the Telegraph reported. With her fortune doubling to more than $10.8 billion in the past year due to a commodities boom, her asset value will soon surpass wealthy figures such as Carlos Slim, the Mexican magnate worth $73 billion and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who is wort...
Smartphones spur social game boom

Jun 27, 2011

SINGAPORE (AFP) ― More virtual livestock looks set to be traded and petulant fowl hurled at targets as social gaming takes hold in the booming mobile phone market, industry experts say. Social gaming, made popular by titles such as “Farmville” and “Angry Birds,” was one of the closely followed topics at last week’s CommunicAsia trade fair in Singapore, where telecom executives meet annually to c...
Vatican to launch Internet news portal

Jun 26, 2011

VATICAN CITY (AP) ― The Vatican is taking a leap into the world of new media next week with the launch of a news information portal that Pope Benedict XVI himself may put online with a papal click. Vatican officials said Saturday that Benedict has been following the development of the portal ―www.news.va ― which will for the first time aggregate information from the Vatican’s various print, radi...
G20 reach key accord on food speculation

Jun 24, 2011

PARIS (AFP) ― Farm ministers from the world’s top economies agreed on action on Thursday to tame the speculative trading blamed for the food price spikes that have hit consumers’ pockets and sparked unrest. “Today is a great day. We have reached an historic accord,” France’s minister for agriculture Bruno Le Maire declared after the Paris meeting, organized as part of the French presidency of th...
U.S. and others plan to tap oil reserves

Jun 24, 2011

NEW YORK (AP) ― The United States and other nations that depend on oil imports will release and sell 60 million barrels of crude from emergency stocks in an effort to ease the strain of high oil prices on the global economy. The release by the International Energy Agency, a group of more than two dozen countries, covers only what the world uses roughly every 16 hours. But it was enough to send o...
Merkel warns against Greek debt restructuring

Jun 23, 2011

BERLIN (AP) ― A full-scale restructuring of Greek debt would have “completely uncontrollable” effects on financial markets and could threaten other countries’ stability, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Wednesday. Imposing a so-called haircut on Greek debt ― reducing the amount to be repaid ― would endanger not only banks and other creditors who hold Greek bonds, but also institutions t...
IMF hopes to name new chief by June 30

Jun 21, 2011

Fund interviews Carstens for top job; Lagarde next WASHINGTON (AP) ― The International Monetary Fund said Monday it will interview the two leading candidates for the top job at the 187-nation lending institution this week with the goal of naming a new chief by June 30. In a statement, the IMF said that Agustin Carstens, the head of Mexico’s central bank, will meet with the agency’s executive bo...
IMF says global recovery at risk

Jun 19, 2011

SAO PAULO (AFP) -- A fragile global economic recovery could falter unless Europe averts sovereign defaults, the United States gets its fiscal house in order and emerging economies prevent overheating, the IMF warned Friday. “There are very clear risks to the recovery,” the International Monetary Fund‘s research director, Olivier Blanchard, said in Sao Paulo as he presented the Fund’s latest upda...
Juncker warns debt crisis in Greece could be contagious

Jun 19, 2011

BERLIN (AP) ― Contagion from the Greek debt crisis could spread to at least five other European countries ― including Belgium or even Italy ― if it is not cautiously managed, the head of the eurozone group warned Saturday. Jean-Claude Juncker told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that demanding that private creditors contribute to the next Greek bailout package could be considered a “defaul...
Merkel wants bank aid for Greece debt

Jun 19, 2011

BERLIN (AFP) ― German Chancellor Angela Merkel Saturday urged “substantial” aid from private creditors to resolve Greek debt woes, as the Eurogroup warned the crisis could spread like a firestorm through EU economies. “We must be sure to try to have a substantial contribution” from private creditors like banks and insurance companies for debt-laden Greece,” Merkel told a meeting of her Christian...
IMF says global recovery at risk

Jun 18, 2011

SAO PAULO (AFP) – There is danger the fragile global recovery could collapse unless Europe averts sovereign defaults, the United States gets its fiscal house in order and emerging economies prevent overheating, the IMF warned Friday. "There are very clear risks to the recovery," the International Monetary Fund's research director, Olivier Blanchard, said in Sao Paulo as he presented the Fund's l...
Ford Asia chief says small cars on way to China, India

Jun 17, 2011