Strong earnings from Caterpillar drive Dow higher

AP, NEW YORK, April 30: Caterpillar drove the Dow Jones industrial average higher Friday after the company reported a huge gain in first-quarter earnings. The world's largest maker of mining and construction equipment rose 2.5 percent after its earnings increased more than five-fold. The company also raised its sales and profit forecast for the year. The Dow added 4 percent in April, its best month since December. ...

5 banks fail in Fla., Ga., Mich.; makes 39 in '11

AP, WASHINGTON, April 30: Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, Georgia and Michigan, a total of five closures that lifted the number of U.S. bank failures this year to 39. The pace of closures has slowed, however, as the economy improves and banks work their way through piles of bad debt. By this time last year, regulators had closed 64 banks. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized First National Bank of Central Florida,...

Beijing turns to currency to cool inflation

AP, BEIJING, April 30: Surging inflation that helped trigger protests in Shanghai is prompting China's leaders to turn to a tool they long resisted: speeding up the rise of the country's tightly controlled currency. Rising prices are a political threat to China's communist leaders and they have declared taming inflation their priority. But they suffered a setback in March, when a double-digit jump in food costs pushed inflation to a 32-month high...

Hiring likely to boost spending despite gas prices

AP, WASHINGTON, April 30: Consumers as a whole will likely spend more this year. But it's not because we'll all be earning more money. Even people lucky enough to get a raise will likely spend most of the extra dollars to pay higher gas and food prices. Yet employers are hiring more freely this year and more people working means more money being spent to fuel the economy. "It is hard to spend money without an income. More jobs will...

Geithner gives some companies pass on new rules

AP, WASHINGTON, April 30: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has decided to let companies continue to trade certain contracts used to guard against swings in currency values outside regulators' view. New rules require that many such trades happen more transparently, on exchanges where regulators can see them. But Geithner is exempting certain contracts used by companies to hedge currency rates. The new financial overhaul law authorized...

Apple juggernaut sends ripples through tech world

AP, NEW YORK, April 30: Consumer technology companies reporting financial results this week are looking like rowboats bobbing in the wake of Apple Inc.'s supertanker. Close to oblivion in 1997, Apple is now the world's second-most valuable company, after Exxon Mobil Corp. On April 20, it reported net income of $5.99 billion for the January-to-March period, nearly double that of a year ago. It shipped a record 18.65 million iPhones...

Amazon launches 69-cent song store

AP, LOS ANGELES, April 30: Amazon.com Inc. this week launched a store that sells digital songs for 69 cents, an attempt to bring more people to its e-commerce website and bolster its plan to eventually charge people to store tunes on distant servers known as the cloud. It has cut the price on singles to 69 cents in the past, but this is the first time it has dedicated a page to the offering. About 200 songs out of the 15 million available have had...

US lawmakers press Sony for info on data breach

AP, WASHINGTON, April 30: U.S. lawmakers are pressing Sony Corp. for more information about the loss of personal data in a security breach that affected 77 million accounts on its PlayStation Network. Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., sent a letter Friday to the chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment America, Kazuo Hirai, demanding answers about when Sony discovered the breach and informed others, why it can't determine...

Poverty in decline in Bangladesh, says governor Atiur

Dhaka, April 29: Increased remittances, better performances by the agriculture sector and improved connectivity have contributed to the fall in the poverty level, say analysts.The number of population below the poverty line has dropped to 31.5 percent from 40 percent in 2005, said Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman yesterday.''It's a remarkable progress in poverty eradication. Some 15 million people have come out of poverty in last 10 years,'' said Rahman,...

SME Foundation wants tax benefit for the sector

Dhaka, April 29: The SME Foundation yesterday urged the government to make a raft of changes in the tax and VAT regime in the upcoming budget for the betterment of the sector. The foundation placed the demands while submitting their proposals for the budget for fiscal 2011-2012 at a meeting with the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in the city. NBR Chairman Nasir-uddin Ahmed, SME Foundation Chairperson Aftab ul Islam, its Managing Director Syed Rezwanul Kabir...

Indian minister stresses Saarc power grid

Dhaka, April 29: A power grid linking South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries has the potential to create 100,000 megawatt of electricity capacity and help bridge the energy deficit in the region, according to KC Venugopal, India's junior power minister. "It is estimated that a Saarc power grid linking Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka has the potential to produce at least 100,000 megawatt (capacity) in the region for...

State Bank of India to open branch in Rajshahi

Rajshahi, April 29: State Bank of India will soon open a branch in Rajshahi city to accelerate the exchange of trade and commerce between Bangladesh and India.Rajshahi City Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton said this to journalists yesterday after a meeting with top officials of the bank. State Bank of India's Country Head in Bangladesh Debabrata Dutta, First Assistant Vice President RM Chakrawarty and Rajshahi branch chief Mahbubur Rahman called on the mayor at his...

Ctg dialogue stresses budget for marginalised

Dhaka, April 29: The government should prepare a decentralised budget to uplift the livelihood and economic condition of the marginalised people, speakers said at a dialogue in Chittagong yesterday.The demand came at a dialogue titled "National budget for 2011-12: a democratic budget and the rights of the marginalised community people" organised by Democratic Budget Movement in collaboration with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) and ActionAid Bangladesh at...