Archive for August 12th, 2009

The sluggish economy saw cash-strapped consumers downing more soda than pricey teas and other bottled beverages. The trend floated sales of Dr Pepper Snapple Group ‘s Dr. Pepper, Crush and Hawaiian Punch drinks higher but Snapple sales have sunk. During 2009′s first quarter, improved carbonated beverage and value juice trends were offset by ongoing weakness… »

Cost consciousness is paying off at BHP Billiton. While the mining industry is still licking the wounds from an up to 90% tumble in some metal prices and faltering growth in commodity-gobbling China, the Anglo-Aussie company is keeping its eyes peeled for acquisition opportunities. While investment in forthcoming projects would be its priority, “we do… »

HONG KONG – Four employees of Rio Tinto have been charged by the Chinese government of illegally obtaining corporate secrets and bribery. The four were expected to be charged with violating more serious state secrets laws. Australian citizen Stern Hu, general manager of Rio Tinto’s Shanghai office in charge of the iron ore business and… »

Retailers are wielding the same weapons-clearances, cost-cutting and promotions-to rid stock rooms of excess inventory while keeping cash registers ringing. The results, however, have been mixed as discounters and moderately priced retailers continue to seize market share from luxury department stores.Buying behavior will come into focus on Thursday as retailers across the price spectrum report… »

The recession is painting a bleak picture of the future of the British society. Crime, mental health problems, domestic violence and drug addiction are set to rise as unemployment reached a 14-year high on Tuesday, a leading public sector watchdog warned on Wednesday.”We are starting to see some of these things happening. We have also… »

Some relief at long, long last for UBS. The embattled Swiss bank will no longer be facing a lawsuit demanding that it hand over the details of 52,000 U.S. citizens suspected of tax evasion. Stuart Gibson, a tax attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice said during a conference call on Wednesday that the case… »

Piracy is believed to have started in Europe, and it appears it has returned to its birthplace following the disappearance of a Russian-crewed cargo in Swedish waters as speculation of its whereabouts grew on Wednesday. Very little is known about the incident except that the ship, bound for Algeria, set off from Finland on July… »

U.S. exports are on the rebound, but rising oil prices widened the trade deficit in June.”The global business cycle is in a state of repair and that involves trade building itself back up, even if it means a modest widening of the deficit,” said Steven Wieting, chief U.S. economist at Citigroup. The trade deficit widened… »

In the technology world, the enemy of an enemy is a friend. So it goes with Nokia and Microsoft, which on Wednesday announced a “long-term alliance” to snatch more of the enterprise market from BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion-even though they also compete against one another with rival operating systems.Although the BlackBerry is not the… »

Are the oil bulls vindicated? The Paris-based International Energy Agency was the latest barrel counter to raise global demand forecasts for 2009 and 2010 on Wednesday, to 83.9 million barrels a day this year and 85.3 million barrels a day next year. Although these followed more bearish predictions for 2009 from the United States’ Energy… »