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An Apple Inc. manager has been charged in a $1 million kickback scheme involving six Asian suppliers of iPhone and iPod accessories.

Paul Shin Devine, a 37-year-old Apple global supply manager from Sunnyvale, was named in federal indictments and a civil suit brought by Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) on Friday in San Jose.

The federal grand jury indictment charges Devince, who has been with Apple since 2005, with wire fraud, money laundering and other offenses.

The indictment also names Andrew Ang of Singapore, who works for Apple supplier Jin Li Mould Manufacturing Pte. Ltd.

Court filings on Friday said that Devine was paid by suppliers in Asia for inside information they could use to get negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.

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SurModics Pharmaceuticals, a Birmingham subsidiary of SurModics Inc., has agreed to license a biodegradable polymer implant technology being developed to treat sun-induced skin disorders to an Australian pharmaceutical firm.

SurModics licensed the SCENESSE implant formula to Australian-based Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals. The two companies have collaborated on developing the formula that is a prophylactic treatment for a range of UV and light-related skin disorders for several years.

“We are very pleased to announce the execution of this important license agreement with Clinuvel,” said Phil Ankeny, interim CEO of SurModics. “This announcement demonstrates the value of our sustained drug delivery technologies and reinforces how we partner with our customers to develop and bring to market compelling products that leverage our core technologies cash advance loans.”

Drugs released from the prophylactic causes melanin production in the skin to protect from ultraviolet rays. Estimates from the Royal Bank of Scotland projects the treatment could impact as many as 7 million people worldwide, according to a release from SurModics.

“Today’s announcement represents a natural progression of our relationship with Clinuvel,” said Arthur J. Tipton, senior vice president and chief scientific officer of SurModics. “Together, our teams have solved numerous scientific and technical issues over the years culminating in the signing of this licensing agreement. Clinuvel’s product provides a novel way to treat serious skin disorders.”

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Honda announced it is expanding a previously announced recall to replace an airbag inflator in an additional 438,000 vehicles worldwide, including 379,000 in the United States.

In a statement posted on its Web site late Tuesday, Honda said the driver’s airbag inflators in these certain vehicles may expand with too much pressure, which can cause the inflator casing to break and could result in injury or death.

The expanded recall includes 2001 and 2002 Accord, Civic, Odyssey, CR-V, and selected 2002 Acura TL vehicles, the statement said. Honda said there have been 12 incidents related to the airbag inflator problem.

One Honda Pilot car and one Acura CL vehicle may also be affected, the spokesman said.

The original recall involving this issue was announced in November 2008 for 2001 and 2002 models of Accords and Civics as well as some 2002 model year Acura TL vehicles, a Honda spokesman told CNNMoney.com. It affected 3,940 U.S. vehicles, and 265 in Canada and Mexico.

Last summer, Honda added 510,150 cars to the recall worldwide, including 443,727 additional units in the United States payday loans in 1 hour.

The recall now affects a total of 952,118 vehicles, with more than 826,000 in the United States.

Although none of the reported problems occurred after July 2009, Honda said it was still expanding the recall because it could not be sure that the inflators in the aforementioned vehicles would work correctly.

Honda said it will notify affected customers by mail and phone with instructions on how to have their vehicles inspected and updated at an authorized dealer. The entire production of each of the models in question is not necessarily included in the recall.

Last month, Honda announced a separate recall of 646,000 2007 and 2008 Fit, City and Jazz models worldwide, after a fire hazard involving a power window switch resulted in a death in South Africa. 

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The Pentagon will hold public meetings in late February regarding the F-35 jet fighter possibly coming to Luke Air Force Base in Glendale.

The Phoenix suburb of El Mirage says noise tests of the new fighter should be completed at Luke before those public Feb. 22-26 forums. The U.S. Defense Department has not yet said if and when such tests might be conducted.

El Mirage officials cite concerns that F-35 will be far nosier than the F-16, which now flies out of Luke on training missions. El Mirage Mayor Michele Kern asked U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last year to bring F-35s to Luke for noise evaluations and the senator said he would.

“The noise needs to be studied,” said El Mirage spokeswoman Stacy Pearson.

Glendale spokesman Jerry McCoy said Glendale is open to the Luke tests, but they should be conducted in a uniform way and at the same time as at other sites being considered for F-35 training fast payday loans. Luke is the U.S. Air Force’s prime training base for F-16 pilots and Glendale is leading the effort to bring the F-35 training to Arizona.

The F-35 is succeeding the F-16 in the U.S. military arsenal.

Luke fighters now take off and land over El Mirage to the north of the base and Goodyear to the south.

McCoy also said Glendale is urging residents and base supporters to attend the DOD meetings.

Luke is competing with bases in Florida and New Mexico for F-35 training. Sites and times for the public forums on Luke have not yet been announced.

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BNP Paribas SA, the most accurate forecaster of the real’s world-beating rally last year, now says avoid Brazil’s currency in favor of the won and rupee as Asia’s central bankers prepare to raise interest rates.

South Korea and India’s currencies will climb 11 percent this year as Brazil’s rally ends, according to Sebastien Galy, the senior foreign-exchange strategist at France’s largest bank in New York. The real, Australia’s dollar and the South African rand were the best-performing of 16 major currencies in 2009, gaining more than 25 percent, on demand for their iron ore, coal and gold. The won rose 8.2 percent and the rupee 4.9 percent.

Bank Julius Baer & Co., Franklin Templeton and Investec Asset Management, which together manage $736 billion, say Asian policy makers will let their currencies strengthen as demand for exports recovers and the cost of imported food and fuel rises. The real weakened 0.1 percent since October 19, when Brazil began taxing foreign purchases of stocks and bonds to curb speculation. South African unions are pressing the government to weaken its currency.

“Much of the gains in commodity currencies already happened in 2009,” said Galy, 35, a former analyst for the International Monetary Fund. “As Asia tightens policy and finally lets its currencies appreciate, flows of capital should shift away from commodity currencies into Asia.”

Real Retreat

Even BNP’s forecast for the real to strengthen 16 percent to 2 per dollar, the most bullish among projections in a Bloomberg survey at the end of 2008, underestimated its rally. The currency closed 2009 at 1.7445, up 33 percent. BNP sees Brazil finishing this year at 1.75 to the dollar, in line with the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 17 analysts, as the exchange rate erodes the competitiveness of manufacturers.

The real gained 0.1 percent to 1.7178 per dollar at 8:19 a.m. in New York, from 1.7200 yesterday.

The won will be the 2010 winner, appreciating 7.8 percent to 1,080 and the rupee will climb 5.7 percent to 44, while the rand drops 6.4 percent to 7.90, separate surveys showed. BNP forecasts the won will rise to 1,050 and the rupee to 42. The Korean currency today gained 1.2 percent to 1,140.5, the biggest increase since July 14, and India’s touched a one-month high of 46.09.

Asian central banks “will be leaders in the hiking cycle,” said Werner Gey van Pittius, a London-based money manager who helps oversee about $60 billion in assets at Investec, which is speculating the real will decline. Its emerging-market bond fund returned 28 percent in 2009, beating the 22 percent gain in the JPMorgan Chase & Co. GBI-EM Global Diversified Unhedged index.

China Stimulus

Currencies of commodity producers rallied in 2009 as China led the global economic recovery by focusing its $586 billion two-year stimulus package on building roads and power plants.

Near-zero interest rates in the U.S. encouraged investors to borrow dollars and invest the money in markets with higher returns through so-called carry trades. Benchmark interest rates are 8.75 percent in Brazil and 7 percent in South Africa.

Swap contracts to exchange fixed-interest payments for floating rates indicate the market anticipates faster increases in Asian borrowing costs. A one-year agreement in India has risen to 1.76 percentage points more than the central bank’s benchmark, up from 0.95 point on June 30. The spread in Korea is 1 free business cards.65 percentage points, compared with 1.69 points in Brazil and 0.13 point in South Africa.

Rate Increases

The Bank of Korea will raise its benchmark rate one percentage point to 3 percent by end-2010, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. India’s central bank will increase its reverse repurchase rate to 4 percent from 3.25 percent, a separate poll showed.

Korean companies boosted capital spending 10 percent in the third quarter, helping win business as demand strengthened in China, just as the financial crisis forced Japanese factories to pare investment. The world’s most-populous nation is the biggest buyer of Korea’s exports, accounting for 18 percent of shipments last month.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc has the most bearish 2009 forecast for the won, predicting a retreat to 1,300, and sees the rupee little changed at 46 as the dollar rallies and developed nations raise rates. New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said in October that a rebound in the dollar may force carry-trade investors to “rush to the exit.”

“As the U.S. economy recovers, rates there will rise and this will reduce the portfolio inflows into India,” said Sanjay Mathur, a Singapore-based economist at RBS, which is controlled by the U.K. government. “As India’s economy rebounds, imports will rise, softening the external position.”

Rand Overvalued

The rand is overvalued by 8 percent to 9 percent, which will “penalize the economy” in 2010, said Murat Toprak, a strategist in London at Societe Generale SA, France’s second- largest bank. South Africa’s central bank will cut its benchmark rate by half a percentage point to 6.5 percent in the first quarter, he said.

SocGen’s 2009 forecast for the rand to gain 12 percent was the most accurate after Standard Bank Group Plc, Africa’s largest lender, in a Bloomberg survey of 22 analysts.

Investors will buy currencies “where they think rates will go up,” said Toprak. SocGen predicts the won will rise 11 percent in 2010 and the rupee 5.7 percent.

Asian nations will allow currency appreciation to reduce import costs and curb inflation, said Michael Hasenstab, who oversees the $2 billion Templeton Emerging Markets Bond Fund.

India’s wholesale food prices surged 20 percent in the week ended Dec. 19 from a year earlier, almost an 11-year high. Global costs jumped 7 percent in November from October, the most in about two years, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Food Costs

“Emerging markets will be among the first to face inflation due to rising commodities prices,” Hasenstab said. His fund returned 49 percent last year, beating the 28 percent advance in the benchmark JPMorgan EMBI Global Index.

Standard Chartered Plc, whose 2009 won forecast was the most accurate, predicts gains of 11 percent for both the Korean and Indian currencies this year.

“You’re going to see Asian governments probably tolerating some currency appreciation to prevent inflation from becoming a bigger problem,” said Neo Teng Hwee, head of portfolio management for Asia at Bank Julius Baer, which oversaw assets equivalent to about $140 billion at the end of June. His preferred picks include the rupee and China’s yuan.

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The European Central Bank will lend banks more money than economists forecast in its final tender of 12-month funds as some financial institutions try to lock in cash at a record low interest rate.

Banks bid for 96.9 billion euros ($141 billion), the Frankfurt-based ECB said today. Economists forecast that it would lend 75 billion euros, the median of 23 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey showed. The cost of borrowing is indexed to the average of the ECB’s benchmark rate rather than fixed at 1 percent, as it was in the previous two tenders.

President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Dec. 10 that market conditions are “stable enough” to allow the ECB to withdraw some of the emergency measures introduced to fight the financial crisis. While the decision to index the rate on the tender will increase banks’ funding costs should policymakers raise the benchmark rate from 1 percent next year, the demand suggests the majority don’t expect an increase next year.

“Banks’ bidding behavior suggests the majority of them don’t expect a change in the policy rate during the duration of the tender,” said Klaus Baader, co-chief European economist at Societe Generale in London. The size of demand “will cause the liquidity situation in money markets to stay relaxed. Overnight and short-term money-market rates will remain very, very low.”

The Eonia overnight rate, the rate European banks charge each other for overnight loans, has declined to about 0.35 percent from 2.2 percent at the start of the year.

The euro was little changed after the announcement, trading at $1.4558 at 12:11 p.m. in Frankfurt, from $1.4538 yesterday.

Flagship Policy

The ECB has flooded markets with cash to fight Europe’s worst recession since World War II and revive lending. It lent 75.2 billion euros at its last 12-month tender in September and a record 442 billion euros in June cash till payday.

The ECB said that 224 banks bid in the latest tender, compared with 589 in September and 1,121 in June.

The 12-month loans formed one of the ECB’s flagship policies this year. The bank will also discontinue its six-month loans after March and only guarantee unlimited funding in its other refinancing operations until April 13.

‘Orderly Unwinding’

The euro-region economy’s emergence from the recession in the third quarter is helping the ECB deploy exit strategies. The central bank earlier this month forecast the economy to expand around 0.8 percent next year and 1.2 percent in 2011 after contracting around 4 percent in 2009.

Still, council members have signaled that they’re in no rush to step up efforts on withdrawing stimulus. Austria’s Ewald Nowotny said in an interview on Dec. 14 that tenders “that we didn’t mention will go on for the time being.” Germany’s Axel Weber said on Dec. 9 that the ECB will have a “process of orderly unwinding” and that the bank will reduce liquidity “slowly and step-by-step.”

The ECB began lending banks as much money as they wanted in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s collapse last year, effectively assuming the role of the money market. In May this year, it announced it would extend the maximum maturity on its loans to 12 months.

“The ECB was more or less successful with its measures to avoid too strong a use of the 12-month tender,” said Juergen Michels, chief euro-region economist at Citigroup in London. “That will make the liquidity drain easier in 2010.”

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The bleeding in the housing market seems to be stanched, at least temporarily, according to home price data released on Tuesday.

Most U.S. cities saw gains in the median price of single-family homes sold during the three months ended Sept. 30, according to the National Association of Realtors’ quarterly report on home prices. This is the second consecutive quarter of gains.

The national median home price was $177,900 in the third quarter, up $7,000 from the previous quarter. And while that down more than 11% from the third quarter of 2008, the pace of decline is slowing. In the second quarter of 2009, home prices fell 15.4% from the same period last year.

"The decline in the national median price has moderated recently," Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.

Yun said a shrinking supply of unsold homes suggests the housing market is getting closer to price stabilization. But he cautioned that a steady stream of financially qualified buyers is necessary to keep the fledgling housing recovery going.

NAR attributed much of the recent increase in home prices to the government’s first-time homebuyer tax credit, which has helped revive home sales from a deep slump.

"We can’t underestimate just how powerful a catalyst the first-time homebuyer tax credit has been for the housing sector," Yun said.

While a glut of foreclosed properties will continue to weigh on prices in the months ahead, "rising sales from the expanded tax credit should stabilize home prices by next spring," Yun said payday cash advances.

Despite the positive report, many clouds dot the housing market horizon. The darkest of those is the current employment picture. The latest release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a national unemployment rate of 10.2%.

"An unemployment rate of 10.2% is a strong psychological impediment for anyone thinking of buying a house," said Ingo Winzer, president of real estate research firm Local Market Monitor Inc.

"Housing markets respond as much to psychological factors as to economic ones," he said. "So we won’t see much of a pickup in home buying until the unemployment rate has turned downward."

Cheapest and priciest areas

The Cape Coral metro area in Florida recorded the largest decline: 40% to $98,000. the Cumblerland area Maryland and West Virginia had the biggest gain: 19.2% to $122,100.

The lowest-priced market in the nation is now Saginaw, Mich., where the median home sold for $61,400 during the quarter, a 6.7% drop over last year. The most expensive market was San Jose, Calif., with a median price of $566,000 — although that’s still a 12.9% discount from a year ago.  

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Europe’s biggest bank HSBC Holdings said its underlying third quarter profits were “significantly ahead” of a year ago and said losses on U.S. consumer loans had shown their first fall in three years.

HSBC said loan impairment allowances for its U.S. consumer finance business declined in the third quarter, representing the first quarterly fall since the start of 2006 and their lowest level for over a year.

HSBC said its investment bank arm had maintained its record performance so far this year.

HSBC shares were up 1.8 percent at 704.9 pence at 0830 GMT (3:30 a bad credit payday advance.m. EST).

“I believe the biggest jolt has now passed through the global economy,” said HSBC Chief Executive Michael Geoghegan. “The world will likely see a two-speed recovery,” he said, adding that emerging markets are likely to drive the recovery.

The bank said on a reported basis, including losses on the fair value of its own debt, Q3 profits were lower than a year ago.

(Reporting by Steve Slater and Clara Ferreira-Marques)

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U.S. banks are at risk of sizable new loan losses, particularly on commercial property, and some banks may not have sufficient capital to fully cushion against losses, a Federal Reserve official said on Monday.

Some large regional and community banks that have built up unusually high concentrations in commercial real estate loans will be "particularly affected" by conditions in those markets, said Jon Greenlee, associate director of the Fed’s Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation.

In the second quarter, said Greenlee, "Credit losses at banking organizations continued to rise, and banks face risks of sizable additional credit losses given the outlook for production and employment."

Greenlee’s comments were in testimony prepared for delivery to a House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee.

"Poor loan quality, subpar earnings, and uncertainty about future conditions raise questions about capital adequacy for some institutions," he said.

While the stability of the banking system has improved, it is far from robust as banks face pressures from weakness in both residential and commercial property markets, Greenlee said.

Although year-on-year housing price price declines slowed in the second quarter, foreclosures and mortgage loss severities are likely to remain high, he said.

Delinquencies of mortgages backing commercial mortgage-backed securities have increased markedly in recent months and market participants anticipate the delinquency rates will rise by the end of the year, Greenlee said.

Fed examiners are noticing a sharp deterioration in loans in banks’ portfolios and loans in commercial mortgage-backed securities, he said. 

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Canada’s jobless rate unexpectedly fell last month, signaling that the U.S.’s largest trading partner has begun an economic recovery that may lead the central bank to increase interest rates within the next year.

Employment rose by 30,600, six times more than forecast, on new jobs in construction and government, Statistics Canada said today. The jobless rate fell to 8.4 percent from 8.7 percent in August.

The Canadian dollar and yields on 2-year government bonds rose to their highest levels this year as investors increased bets the Bank of Canada may follow Australia and withdraw some economic stimulus by raising borrowing costs.

“The risks of them going sooner rather than later are increasing at the moment,” said Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities Inc. in Toronto, adding he still expects the bank will wait until the middle of next year to raise borrowing costs.

The central bank lowered its benchmark lending rate to 0.25 percent in April and pledged to keep it there through June 2010 unless the inflation outlook changes materially. The lower rates have eased credit conditions for businesses, and made it cheaper for households to take out loans and purchase homes.

The bank released a survey today that showed businesses are the most optimistic about future sales since at least 1998.

Faster Recovery

Because of Canada’s healthier banks, policy makers have claimed stimulus in Canada will be more effective than in other major economies. None of Canada’s 21 banks has received government funding since credit seized up worldwide in August 2007, prompting government officials and organizations like the International Monetary Fund to predict the country will emerge from the global recession at a faster pace than other major economies.

The latest positive data include a 7.2 percent rise in August building permits, a pick-up in factory sales, a larger than expected increase in spending by purchasing managers last month, and a third consecutive monthly increase in home prices, according to the July reading of the Teranet-National Bank price index.

The Canadian dollar appreciated 0.8 percent to C$1.0435 per U.S. dollar at 4:33 p.m. in Toronto, from C$1.0518 yesterday. It touched C$1.0411, the strongest since Sept. 29, 2008.

The yield on Canada’s overnight index swap due in one year, a security based on investor expectations of where the Bank of Canada’s rate will be at that point, rose above 0.6 percent today for the first time since February, trading as high as 0.64 percent. The yield on 9-month swaps rose to as high as 0.45 percent today from 0.39 percent yesterday.

Bond Yields Rising

The yield on Canadian government bonds maturing in December 2011 rose to 1 low interest payday loans.70 percent today, gaining more than one-third of a percentage point from 1.36 since Monday.

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest lender, today raised its fixed-rate mortgages by as much as 0.35 percentage points.

“The market is starting to speculate whether the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates sooner than it conditionally pledged,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto. “We still think that the bank will not tighten until July next year, but the risks are more evenly balanced now.”

This week, Australia became the first country in the Group of 20 nations to boost borrowing costs since the start of the credit crisis. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased the overnight cash rate target on Oct. 6 to 3.25 percent from a 49- year low of 3 percent.

Not Australia

“The Bank of Canada is not like the Reserve Bank of Australia,” Derek Holt, an economist at Scotia Capital in Toronto, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “The Canadian growth dynamics are very different. We’re much more pointed south to weakness in the U.S. economy.”

While Canada, like Australia, is a major commodity exporter and is benefiting from rising prices for raw materials, roughly three-quarters of the country’s foreign sales are shipped to the lagging U.S. economy. A stronger Canadian dollar, which has advanced 17 percent against its U.S. counterpart this year, is also damping demand for exports.

Statistics Canada said separately today the country’s trade deficit widened to a record C$1.99 billion ($1.9 billion) in August as exports plunged 5.1 percent.

Canadian government officials have sought to damp optimism of a recovery, saying that it is being driven by government stimulus and that private-sector demand remains weak.

U.S. Concern

The public sector, along with manufacturing and construction, led the rise in September employment. Government entities added 36,400 jobs during the month while construction, benefiting from rising home prices and a government stimulus package that targets the industry, added 24,600 jobs during the month.

“My big concern remains the U.S.,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today at a press conference in Welland, Ontario. “Even though we’ve had some good jobs news today, we aren’t out of the woods yet.”

Canadian federal and provincial governments are injecting C$61 billion in stimulus over two years to fuel infrastructure spending, boost job benefits and provide tax cuts to households that make home renovations.

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