By Eva Kuehnen FRANKFURT | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:17am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The euro zone economy is likely to shrink next year as it has in 2012, the European Central Bank predicted on Thursday, sharply downgrading its outlook after holding interest rates at a record low 0.75 percent. The bank's new staff projections put gross domestic product i...

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 9:07am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell for a third straight week last week, dropping back to their pre-superstorm Sandy range. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 370,000 in the week...

LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 8:10am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Coffee chain Starbucks (SBUX.O) said it could pay up to 20 million pounds more in tax as it announced plans to change its accounting practices, surrendering to criticism from lawmakers, campaigners and the media. A Reuters examination of Starbucks accounts published in October showed the company had ...

By Kelvin Soh and Steve Slater HONG KONG/LONDON | Thu Dec 6, 2012 7:46am EST HONG KONG/LONDON (Reuters) - Standard Chartered expects to pay $330 million to settle a case with U.S. regulators for breaking sanctions on Iran, the Asian-focused bank said on Thursday, a second such penalty which could almost wipe out its profit growth this year. Stand...

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:48pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators charged a Wells Fargo investment banker and nine others with fraud on Wednesday in connection with their alleged role in an insider-trading ring that earned more than $11 million by trading on tips about impending mergers. The Securities an...

By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:47pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. aerospace and arms companies are poised for 2.8 percent overall sales growth next year to about $224 billion, which would mark their 10th straight year of growth, barring steep Pentagon budget cuts, the industry's chie...

By Thomas Ferraro and Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:36pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans and Democrats dug in on "fiscal cliff" talks on Wednesday, with both sides urging quick action but offering no compromises in a political stare-down that shows no signs of breaking. Less than a month before the onset of spending cuts a...

By Lisa Baertlein Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:14pm EST (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) Chief Executive Howard Schultz on Wednesday said the coffee chain is in talks about paying income taxes in the UK, despite the fact the company has not made a profit in that market for many years. "We are engaged in discussions to make a contribution - despite the fact that w...

By David Henry and Rick Rothacker Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:10pm EST (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc said it is cutting 11,000 jobs worldwide, delivering the first of what investors expect to be a new series of steps to shrink the bank down to a more manageable and profitable size. The cuts, which amount to about 4 percent of the bank's workforce, carry the fingerprint...

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:00pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A volatile trading session ended with U.S. stocks mostly higher on Wednesday, even as Apple, the most valuable company in the United States, suffered its worst day of losses in almost four years. In a strange occurrence, Apple accounted for the entirety of the Nasdaq 10...

By Hilary Russ NEW YORK | Wed Dec 5, 2012 5:48pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Construction workers in the U.S. Northeast should see hiring pick up after years of job losses, as the region gears up efforts to rebuild after the devastation brought by Superstorm Sandy. New York City alone could gain roughly 10,000 new jobs for electricians, laborers, ca...

By Jessica Wohl Wed Dec 5, 2012 4:56pm EST (Reuters) - Opening their doors and offering sales on Thanksgiving did more than give retailers an early start to the holiday shopping season - the holiday actually may have drawn more shoppers than "Black Friday." Thirty percent of Americans surveyed in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll said they shopped either online or...

By Paul Lienert and Deepa Seetharaman DETROIT | Wed Dec 5, 2012 4:47pm EST DETROIT (Reuters) - After failing numerous times to revamp its lagging Lincoln brand, Ford Motor Co (F.N) is preparing to try yet again with a new compact crossover aimed at younger drivers looking for a finely crafted but low-key luxury car. The Lincoln MKC, will be previ...

WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 2:53pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. airline company executives, complaining that their industry is over-taxed and over-regulated, on Wednesday called for a national airline policy to help them shore up profits and jobs. "Right now, we are subject to what is really a hodge-podge of ill-thought-out regulations and taxes," sa...

Wikimedia Commons Recent news from the Phoenix Business Journal revealed that a Costa Rica-based investment firm purchased more than $12 million in cash to acquire an office complex in Arizona's capital. In October, The Costa Rica Star reported on the acquisition of North American Breweries Holdings by Florida Ice and Farm Company, S.A., a transaction valued at $388 million, also in cash. The t...

A petition by the Riteve inspection company for a huge 157% price hike in mandatory vehicle inspections in January has raised outcries of rage and pain from taxi owners and motorcyclists. The reaction from comments on social media ranges from "exorbitant" to "outrageous," among some less restrained comments. Motorcyclists and taxi owners will undoubtedly express their displeasure in more physic...

Vitec Videocom Costa Rica inaugurated an expansion of its Cartago factory last week in order to produce the Italian Manfrotto tripod. The tripod will be added to the list of devices produced by Vitec under such trademarks as O'Connor, Vinten and Sachtler. Julio Lizano, chief of Vitec operations here, said that the reputation of Vitec was such that the company decided to transfer part of its pro...

FRANKFURT | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:40am EST FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Sales of Daimler's (DAIGn.DE) Mercedes-Benz luxury brand climbed 5.7 pct to 120,346 vehicles in November, an all-time high for that month, as rising U.S. volumes fully offset a decline in China. Mercedes sales chief Joachim Schmidt reaffirmed the bra...

NEW YORK | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:39am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private-sector employers added 118,000 jobs in November, shy of economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 125,000 jobs.October's private payrolls were revised ...

WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:37am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nonfarm productivity increased at a much faster clip than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses held the line on hiring even as output surged, with unit labor costs falling at their fastest pace in almost a year. Productivity increased at a 2.9 percent annual rate, the fastest ...

By Angela Moon NEW YORK | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:37am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures rose on Wednesday after comments from China's new leader boosted global growth expectations. Still, some earlier gains were trimmed after data showed U.S. private-sector employers added 118,000 jobs in November, shy of economists' expectations.Chinese Communis...

NEW YORK | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:57am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp intends to open at least 3,000 net new stores in the Americas region by 2017, the company said on Wednesday. At the outset of a New York meeting on its growth strategy, the company also said China should become its second-largest market ...

By Luke Baker BRUSSELS | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:22am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Much has been written over the past year about the risks of a two-speed Europe in which the 17 euro zone countries move ahead more rapidly than the rest of the European Union. Such a divergence, the conventional wisdom goes, could mark the beginning of an unraveling of nearl...

By David Milliken and Peter Griffiths LONDON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:13am EST LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister George Osborne said on Wednesday he would break a key debt promise and warned that growth will be weaker than expected in a bleak outlook that could damage his party's hopes of winning a 2015 election. In a budget update to parlia...

By Lionel Laurent PARIS | Wed Dec 5, 2012 8:05am EST PARIS (Reuters) - France's top banks are taking advantage of calmer markets to return to expanding in the United States, a year after deep cuts to their investment banks saw them lose ground to rivals in the world's biggest financial market. BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), France's largest bank, and clo...

By David Lawder and Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 7:11pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama held his ground on the "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, insisting on higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, while Republicans showed increasing disarray over how far they should go to compromise with Obama's demands. With les...

By Jennifer Hoyt Cummings Tue Dec 4, 2012 6:54pm EST (Reuters) - UBS Wealth Management Americas released its 2013 compensation plan to its financial advisers on Tuesday, announcing changes that will give them incentives to sell a wider range of products and bring in more revenue. There are also changes to the compensation structure that will likely help t...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 6:53pm EST (Reuters) - Boeing said Tuesday that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is requiring inspections of all 787 Dreamliners currently in service to confirm that fuel line connectors have been properly installed. The FAA requirement, due to be issued Wednesday, "makes mandatory inspections already recommended by Boeing," the company sa...

LONDON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 6:42pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - British supermarket operator Tesco (TESO.O) will launch a strategic review of its money-losing Fresh & Easy chain in the United States, Sky News reported on Tuesday. Tesco Chief Executive Philip Clarke will announce in the company's third-quarter results on Wednesday "a strategic review that coul...

By Nate Raymond and Suzanne Barlyn NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 6:36pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has sided with a UBS AG (UBSN.VX) request for arbitration in a proposed class-action lawsuit seeking overtime pay brought by three former financial advisers at a brokerage unit of the bank. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in ...

By David Henry NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 6:08pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Despite the prospect of low lending rates for years to come, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) will continue to build new branch offices to take in more deposits to make loans and support some of its business franchises, a top bank executive said on Tuesday. "Even in the curr...

By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 5:29pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks finished slightly lower in a quiet session on Tuesday as the back-and-forth wrangling over the "fiscal cliff" gave investors little reason to act. Trading volume was light as legislators continue to negotiate a deal to avoid a $600 billion package of tax hikes an...

New Report from Lockton Global Highlights Challenges for Risk Management in Latin America As more companies invest and expand throughout Latin America, there is increasing focus on protecting these investments through effective risk management and insurance approaches. Global insurers are increasing their participation and activities in the region while governments are adapting their regulator...

By Karen Jacobs Tue Dec 4, 2012 4:07pm EST (Reuters) - American Airlines passenger service agents, the only major employee group at the carrier not unionized, began voting Tuesday on whether to be represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union. About 9,700 airport agents and reservations representatives are eligible to cast ballots in a ...

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK | Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:40pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) board member Rajat Gupta can remain free on bail while he appeals his insider-trading conviction, an appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Gupta had been scheduled to surrender January 8 to start a two-year prison sentence. But after hearing...

Tue Dec 4, 2012 3:34pm EST (Reuters) - American International Group Inc (AIG.N) shuffled the management of its mortgage insurance unit for the second time this year, naming a new chief executive for United Guaranty and moving the prior CEO to a senior underwriting position. AIG said on Tuesday that Donna DeMaio would become CEO of United Guaranty, which has becom...

Investments in port infrastructure, new free zones, condominium housing developments, and a new road promises more development in Limon Costa Rica. One of the projects planned to start in 2013 is the new Moin Container Terminal, by APM Terminals, whose construction will require three years and a workforce of 1,000 workers. Also, for 2013 is the expected start of construction of a "condominiu...

The recent rise in the Ministry of Finance values of used cars has hit importer, car fleet owners, and the tax on selling a car. But, observes the national newspaper La Nacion, only 315 protests have been filed. The re-evaluation will raise import duties on imported used cars, a brisk business in this country with its own chamber to look out for its interests. And only Jose Carballo, president ...

By Fred Barbash WASHINGTON | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:56am EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With a few weeks remaining before the onset of "fiscal cliff," a bipartisan delegation of governors is set to meet Tuesday with President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in search of some answers about the impact of deficit reduction measures on their state budg...

By John O'Donnell and Robin Emmott BRUSSELS | Tue Dec 4, 2012 8:49am EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Germany and France publicly clashed on Tuesday over plans to put the European Central Bank in charge of supervising banks, deepening a dispute over the scope of the ECB's powers that threatens to undermine one of Europe's boldest reforms. With time runni...