finance- BlackBerry unveils PlayBook tablet

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion unveiled the PlayBook, a tablet computer, at a developer conference Monday.
The tablet market is so far dominated by Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and its popular iPad, but other tech companies are trying to cash in as well."Every successful professional has a great PlayBook," said Mike Lazaridis, co-chief executive of RIM, at the BlackBerry Developer conference in San Francisco.
The PlayBook tablet features a 7-inch screen, Flash-capable video and a front and rear high-definition camera. It's thin, at just 9.7 millimeters, and weighs 0.9 pounds. Lazaridis did not name a price.
For now, the PlayBook -- which will be released in 2011 -- can connect to the Internet only via Wi-Fi. RIM said it plans to offer 3G and 4G models sometime in the future.
Still, Lazaridis said RIM's goal was "to offer an uncompromised Web experience."
The PlayBook includes a 1 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM. It's compatible with HDMI video output and Bluetooth, as well as microHDMI and microUSB.
A new operating system: The tablet won't use RIM's newly launched BlackBerry 6 operating system. Instead, it's built around a new platform from QNX Software Systems, which RIM (RIMM) acquired earlier this year.
A QNX rep also appeared at the conference and said the PlayBook will offer "just a great gaming experience."
Lazaridis said the BlackBerry Messenger system will be "opened as a social platform for applications," but he didn't give any further details. He also said in-app payments and a BlackBerry advertising service will "generate revenue immediately."
Shares of RIM rose about 2% in after-hours trade Monday, but the stock is down nearly 30% this year due to concerns that the company is falling behind Apple as well as smartphone makers using Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system.
The PlayBook is being released at a critical time for RIM. The company surprised its critics by posting strong sales and subscriber growth last quarter, but its just-launched BlackBerry Torch failed to make a splash in the smartphone market.

Samsung Q1 net profit surges to record high

Samsung Electronics said net profit surged more than six-fold in the first quarter to a record high on strong demand and higher prices for memory chips as well as increased sales of mobile phones and flat screen televisions.
Samsung earned 3.99 trillion won ($3.59 billion) in the three months ended March 31, the company said Friday. It recorded net profit of 582 billion won the year before.
The latest figure was an all-time high for the company, said spokesman Jason Kim, surpassing 3.81 trillion won in the third quarter of last year.
The company also said sales in the first quarter totaled 34.64 trillion won. That was 20.8 percent higher than the 28.67 trillion won reported a year earlier.
Samsung Electronics Co. is a major force in the global technology industry, ranking as the largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, flat screen televisions and liquid crystal displays. It also stands No. 2 globally in mobile phones behind Finland's Nokia Corp.
Samsung said in a release that sales in its semiconductor business jumped 57 percent to 8.2 trillion won in the first quarter. The company said tight supply and strong demand caused prices for DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips to rise. DRAM are used mostly in personal computers.
The company also cited steady demand for NAND flash memory chips in line with consumer purchases of smart phones and mobile application products. NAND are used in devices such as digital cameras, music players and smart phones.
"Strong demand for mobile products continued despite weak seasonality," Samsung said in presentation materials for investors.
In mobile phones, Samsung sold 64.3 million of the devices in the first quarter, up 40 percent from the year before. It predicted demand will increase in the current second quarter in line with the global economic recovery.
The company also sold 8.4 million flat screen TVs in the first quarter, an increase of 47 percent from the year before. Samsung said it expects demand to grow 34 percent in the second quarter.
"In the TV business, we launched aggressive marketing activities focusing on 3D TV as well as LED TV," Robert Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations, told analysts on a conference call. "As a result, our shipment and profit margin improved significantly year on year."
Investors cheered the results, sending Samsung shares 2.9 percent higher to close at 849,000 won. Samsung's stock price, which surged 77 percent in 2009, hit a record high of 870,000 won on April 5 this year.

Global stocks rise amid Greek bailout hopes

Asian stocks advanced Friday, following overseas markets higher as signs the U.S. economy was healing and debt-ridden Greece might soon be rescued eased anxiety about the global outlook. European shares gained in early trade.
The broad move higher in Asia marked a turnaround after a string of losses. The dollar was slightly lower against the euro and stronger against the yen, and oil prices climbed above $86 a barrel.
Helping sentiment was an overnight rise in the U.S., where stocks rallied after a series of upbeat earnings reports and a reading on unemployment that suggested layoffs might be slowing. The news gave investors reason to hope a rebound in the world's largest economy, a key Asian export market, was sustainable.
At the same time, investors seemed less agitated about Europe's debt problems. Thursday brought reassurances from European leaders they were working quickly to approve a bailout for Greece so it can make good on its debt payments, one of which comes due in just several weeks.
Markets worldwide plummeted earlier this week after fiscally troubled countries Greece, Portugal and Spain saw their credit ratings cut — an escalation of the region's debt crisis that that spread fears of a contagion that could weigh on the economy.
Long Xiaobo, managing director of Cypress House Asset Management in Hong Kong, said Europe's debt problems remained a key risk and its economic recovery was anything but certain right now. In Asia, however, faster economic growth could continue to lure investors and buoy the region's stocks in the coming months.
"I think Asia's markets are likely to extend their good performance for some time. The economic outlook here is still robust and there's a lot of liquidity," said Long, whose investment fund focuses on equities.
Europe added to its gains in early trade, with Britain's FTSE 100 rising 0.4 percent, Germany's DAX climbing 0.7 percent France's CAC-40 little changed. Wall Street futures pointed to a stronger open in the U.S.
In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average was up 132.61 points, or 1.2 percent, at 11,057.40.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 1.6 percent to 21,106.48 and South Korea's main benchmark added 0.8 percent to 1,741.56
Elsewhere, Australia's market rose 0.5 percent, India's Sensex was up 0.5 percent and Shanghai's index gained 0.1 percent.
As in the U.S., Asian companies also reported results that suggested a pickup in Shares in Samsung Electronics jumped 3 percent after the South Korean tech giant said net profit surged to a record in the first quarter, the result of stronger world demand for computers and gadgets.
In currencies, the dollar rose to 94.16 yen from 94.07 yen. The euro was up at $1.3288 from $1.3241.
Oil prices rose in Asia, with benchmark crude for June delivery up 84 cents to $86.01 a barrel. The contract rose $1.95 to settle at $85.17 on Thursday.
In the U.S., the Dow rose 122.05, or 1.1 percent, to 11,167.32, bringing its two-day advance to 175.33.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 15.42, or 1.3 percent, to 1,206.78, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 40.19, or 1.6 percent, to 2,511.92.

NY Fed Lawyer Says AIG ‘Didn’t Warrant’ Geithner Attention

Timothy Geithner, the former Federal Reserve Bank of New York president, wasn’t aware of efforts to limit American International Group Inc.’s bailout disclosures because the regulator’s top lawyer didn’t think the issue merited his attention, the attorney told lawmakers.
“Matters relating to AIG securities law disclosures were not brought to the attention of Mr. Geithner,” Thomas Baxter, general counsel of the New York Fed, said yesterday in a letter to Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, and Edolphus Towns, Democrat of New York. “In my judgment as the New York Fed’s chief legal officer, disclosure matters of this nature did not warrant the attention of the president.” Geithner, who helped orchestrate the bailout of AIG when he led the New York Fed, is now Treasury Department secretary.
Geithner and Baxter were asked yesterday to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about e- mails from the New York Fed in 2008, when Geithner led the regulator, asking AIG to withhold data about payments to banks. Firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA were fully reimbursed on swap guarantees from AIG, prompting Issa to call its rescue a “backdoor bailout” of banks.
Issa said it was “staggering” that Baxter felt he didn’t need to notify Geithner about discussions with New York-based AIG about what records the insurer should make public in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Baxter’s “letter raises more questions on the inner-workings of the New York Fed during one of the most pivotal periods in our nation’s history,” he said in an e-mail.
E-Mail Correspondence
Treasury spokeswoman Meg Reilly said this week that while at the New York Fed, Geithner “was recused from working on issues involving specific companies, including AIG,” after he was nominated Nov. 24, 2008, for the secretary post. The e-mail correspondence between the New York Fed and AIG that was released this week by Issa’s office begins on Nov. 24, 2008.
Geithner made the decision to pay banks 100 cents on the dollar for their AIG swaps tied to subprime mortgages, according to a November 2009 audit from Neil Barofsky, the special inspector of the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program.
AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing about the swaps that the insurer fully reimbursed banks to retire the contracts. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008.
Jack Gutt, a spokesman for the New York Fed, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment late yesterday.
Towns, who is chairman of the oversight committee, said in a statement the hearing will probably be the week of Jan. 18.

China Guides Bill Yields Higher, Seeks to Curb Loans

China’s central bank sold three-month bills at a higher interest rate for the first time in 19 weeks after saying its focus for 2010 is controlling the record expansion in lending and curbing price increases.
The People’s Bank of China offered 60 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) of bills at a yield of 1.3684 percent, four basis points higher than at last week’s sale, according to a statement. Policy makers will seek “moderate” loan growth to support the economy while managing inflation expectations, the bank said yesterday in a report on its annual work meeting.
“It’s definitely a signal that the central bank is tightening liquidity,” said Jiang Chao, a fixed-income analyst in Shanghai at Guotai Junan Securities Co., the nation’s largest brokerage by revenue. “The rising yield is used to prevent excessive growth in bank lending.”
Stocks fell across Asia and oil declined on concern growth will slow in China, the engine of the world economy’s recovery from its worst recession since World War II. Premier Wen Jiabao said on Dec. 27 that last year’s doubling in new loans had caused property prices to rise “too quickly,” while surging commodity costs were increasing inflationary pressure.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.5 percent and crude oil for February delivery slid 0.6 percent after 10 days of gains. Copper for delivery in three months dropped as much as 1 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 2 percent, led by Bank of China Ltd. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.
Tightening in Asia
“We expect some tightening of monetary policy in Asia in the first half,” said Norman Villamin, Singapore-based head of investment analysis for Asia Pacific at Citigroup Private Bank. “Markets will struggle to go higher.”
Australia’s central bank raised borrowing costs by a quarter percentage point on Dec. 1 to 3.75 percent after similar moves in November and October. The Bank of Korea, which meets tomorrow, will probably raise its benchmark rate one percentage point to 3 percent by end-2010, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. By contrast, rates are close to zero in the U.S. and the Federal Reserve last month discussed increasing asset purchases should the economy weaken.
China’s government has told lenders to pace their lending, while tightening tax and mortgage rules for second-home purchases. Liu Mingkang, the top banking regulator, wrote in an opinion piece in Bloomberg News this week that “structural bubbles threaten to emerge” in the world’s fastest-growing economy.
“There’s no doubt that lending has been excessive and that explains why policy makers are starting to be more cautious about lending this year,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.
Bill Sales
Guotai Junan’s Jiang said the yield on one-year bills will climb in open-market operations next week, following the resumption of gains for rates on three-month notes. The yield will increase about four basis points from the 1.7605 percent level it’s been kept at since Aug. 11, he predicted.
The central bank resumed sales of one-year bills on July 9 after an eight-month suspension to help drain cash from banks. Higher bill yields may encourage lenders to part with more cash, reducing funds in the banking system available for loans.
China’s one-year interest-rate swap, the cost of receiving a floating rate for 12 months, rose 9.5 basis points to 2.23 percent. The yield on the 2.18 percent treasury note due September 2012 climbed three basis points to 2.45 percent, according to quotes provided by the China Interbank Bond Market. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
Lending Boom
Qu estimates new loans will be limited to 7 trillion yuan in 2010. Banks extended an unprecedented 9.21 trillion yuan of loans in the first 11 months of 2009, compared with 4.15 trillion yuan a year earlier. The China Banking Regulatory Commission recommends lending this year should be between 7 trillion yuan and 8 trillion yuan, a person familiar with the matter said last month.
The People’s Bank said it would curb volatility in lending, monitor the property market and “stabilize the stock market’s operations,” without elaborating on the latter comment. It reaffirmed a “moderately loose” monetary policy.
The statement contrasted with the start of 2009, when the central bank targeted “appropriate” increases in lending and money supply and said monetary policy would play “a more active role in promoting economic growth.”
Consumer prices climbed 0.6 percent in November from a year earlier, snapping a nine-month run of declines. The central bank is on alert for inflation after economic growth accelerated to 8.9 percent in the third quarter of 2009, the fastest in a year.
Property Prices
Housing Minister Jiang Weixin said yesterday that the nation will limit credit for some home purchases to reduce property-market speculation. Prices across 70 cities rose at the fastest pace in 16 months in November, gaining 5.7 percent from a year earlier, led by Shenzhen, Wenzhou and Jinhua.
The central bank will “closely watch changes in the property market, strictly implement relevant property lending policies and promote the healthy development of property finance,” its statement said.
The central bank didn’t state a 2010 target for growth in M2, the broad measure of money supply, after overshooting a 17 percent goal last year. The actual rate was more than 25 percent for most of 2009, rising to a record 29.7 percent in November.
“Growth will probably slow this year as tight credit will dampen the demand side,” said Zhang Ling, who helps oversee about $7.21 billion at ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management Co. in Beijing. “That will dash investors’ hopes of another year of fast growth.”

US trade representative to visit India April 12-15 to advance bilateral trade

US Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab will lead a high-level delegation to India April 12-15 for strategic trade talks and bilateral discussions. Schwab will co-chair the fourth ministerial-level meeting of the US-India Trade Policy Forum with India's Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath, her office announced WednesdayThe United States and India maintain one of the world's fastest growing major bilateral trade relationships and are committed to a goal of doubling bilateral trade to approximately US$ 60 billion by 2008. "Since President Bush's historic trip to India last March, we have made important progress in our bilateral relationship," said Schwab. "The US-India Trade Policy Forum is a critical instrument to foster bilateral trade and investment opportunities."At the Trade Policy Forum, Schwab will discuss initiatives to strengthen bilateral trade ties and achieve progress in the areas of agricultural trade, investment, trade in services, reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and boosting innovation and creativity. The US-India Trade Policy Forum was launched during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Washington, DC, in July 2005. The previous Ministerial-level Trade Policy Forum meeting was held in June 2006 in Washington, DC. While in India, Schwab will hold in-depth discussions in New Delhi with senior Indian officials on the World Trade Organization Doha Development Agenda. She will also attend brief gatherings of the G-4 and G-6 trade ministers to do a stocktaking of progress in the Doha Round. This will be Schwab's first trip to India since her confirmation by the US Senate in June 2006. Schwab's delegation will include Deputy US Trade Representatives Karan Bhatia and Peter Allgeier, Chief Agricultural Negotiator Richard Crowder and Assistant US Trade Representative for South and Southwest Asia Douglas A. Hartwick.

U.S., U.K. Close Yemen Embassies; Brown Cites ‘Failing State’

The U.S. and U.K. closed their embassies in Yemen, citing threats of attacks, as officials voiced concern over al-Qaeda’s presence in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a “failing state.”
White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said intelligence indicated that al-Qaeda plans attacks in Sana’a, the capital, “possibly against our embassy, possibly against U.S. personnel.” Shutting the embassy “was the prudent thing to do,” Brennan said yesterday on ABC’s “This Week” program.
The U.K. and U.S. are offering more security aid for Yemen, an impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation which is emerging as a base for al-Qaeda attacks as the terrorist group comes under pressure in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
U.K. Prime Minister Brown, who called Yemen a “failing state” in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. yesterday, will convene a Jan. 28 aid conference on Yemen in London at which the U.K. will seek to enlist support from oil- rich Gulf nations.
The Yemen branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Dec. 25 attack, in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight with 278 passengers.
The failed attack prompted the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to issue new rules yesterday calling for “enhanced screening” of U.S.-bound air travelers who have passed through “countries of interest,” as well as requiring random checks on other international flights.
Other Attacks Feared
Brennan, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, said there are “probably several hundred” al-Qaeda members in Yemen and the U.S. worries they may be training other operatives for attacks in the U.S. and elsewhere similar to the one attempted by Abdulmutallab.
“We’re not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others” at the American embassy, Brennan said on “Fox News Sunday,” one of four Sunday news shows on which he appeared.
Asked if American troops might be sent to Yemen, Brennan said: “We’re not talking about that at this point at all.”
“The Yemeni government has demonstrated their willingness to take the fight to al-Qaeda,” Brennan said. “They’re willing to accept our support. We’re providing them everything that they’ve asked for.”
The embassy closures came a day after the top U.S. general in the region, David Petraeus, paid an unannounced visit to Yemen and pledged more assistance in combating terrorism.
Doubling U.S. Aid
Petraeus, in talks Jan. 2 in Sana’a with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to support anti- terrorism efforts in Yemen, the Yemeni presidency said in a statement on its Web site. Petraeus told reporters in Baghdad on Jan. 1 that the U.S. in fiscal 2010 will almost double last year’s $70 million in security aid for Yemen.
“The Yemeni president and parliament take this threat very seriously,” Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia, said in Baghdad. “And that is of enormous significance, especially in a country facing such challenges.”
The London conference should concentrate on Yemen’s $11 billion development needs as well as anti-terrorism assistance, Deputy Minister for Planning and International Cooperation Hisham Sharaf said by phone from Sana’a yesterday.
A November 2006 donors’ conference in London led to pledges of $5.7 billion in aid for Yemen, almost half from Gulf nations, of which only $415 million has been received, Sharaf said.
“What is needed is a long-term aid strategy,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional security expert from the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center. “It would be wrong to focus only on security and counterterrorism.”
Other Challenges
Yemen is also struggling to subdue both an insurgency by northern Shiite Muslim rebels that has drawn in neighboring Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, and a secessionist movement in the south. It is the poorest Arab nation and the government expects oil reserves that fund 70 percent of the budget to run out over the next decade.
Obama and Brown agreed to fund a police unit in Yemen to target terrorism and will support coast guard operations in the Arabian Peninsula nation, according to an e-mailed statement from the two governments yesterday.
Yemen said Dec. 24 it had foiled an al-Qaeda attack on the U.K. embassy a week earlier modeled on a twin suicide car bombing on the U.S. embassy in September 2008 that killed 17 people, including seven security guards and seven attackers.
Al-Qaeda Base
Yemen has become an increasingly important base for al- Qaeda, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said on Dec. 29.
Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old, spent about three months in Yemen before leaving the country in early December. He told U.S. investigators that in Yemen he received training and the bomb- making materials he used in his attempt to blow up the airliner.
Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies had “snippets” of information that were recognized “in hindsight” to be related to the failed attack. There was a “failure to integrate and piece together those bits of information,” he said.
The top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond of Missouri, said the U.S. national security system failed.
“With all of the leads dangling out there, somebody screwed up by not reporting it,” said Bond. In addition, the airport screening “was a disaster,” he said.
The Intelligence Committee, one of several congressional panels planning investigations of the incident, will hold a hearing Jan. 21. Bond, appearing yesterday on Fox, said there are no grounds at this point to fire Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair or Leon Panetta, head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Other Criticism
Other Republicans criticized the Democratic Obama administration’s anti-terrorism efforts.
“What we had in this case was a failure to act on a very credible report from the terrorist’s father that should, at the very least, have caused the State Department to revoke his visa,” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said on “This Week.” Abdulmutallab’s father warned officials at the U.S. embassy in Nigeria that he was worried about his son’s extremist views, U.S. authorities said.
“Why wasn’t this individual’s visa revoked once we had such a credible report that he posed a threat?” Collins said.
She said it is “unacceptable” that there is no screening system in place to detect the explosive used in the Christmas Day incident, even eight years after would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid used “the exact same explosive.”
Enemy Combatant
Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, said the U.S. “probably lost valuable information” by not viewing the attempted airline bombing as an act of war and the suspect as an enemy combatant.
“If we had treated this Christmas Day bomber as a terrorist, he would have immediately been interrogated military- style, rather than given the rights of an American and lawyers,” DeMint said on CNN.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, also appearing on CNN, said it is “unfair and, frankly, political to take pot shots at the president as we respond to this failure in our systems that we’ve got to get fixed.”