Gold

The trade surplus narrowed to $13.1 billion in December, customs authorities said — a sharp drop from the $22.9 billion recorded in November and below analyst forecasts given by Dow Jones Newswires of $21.7 billion.

But the figure will nevertheless add to the already huge volume of money flowing into the world’s second-largest economy, and could fuel soaring inflation.

“Our partner is very focused on making sure they understand what went wrong,” said Carlos Tavares, chairman of Nissan’s Americas division.

“We at Nissan trust that our partner Renault will do the right thing to fix it.”

The first boatload of the new Jeep Grand Cherokee exported from Detroit is expected to reach China soon and Chrysler is also preparing to expand sales in South America, Eastern Europe and Russia, officials said.

The push coincides with the brand’s 70th anniversary, which Chrysler will be celebrating Monday at the Detroit auto show.

The Motor City has been under the pall of the Detroit Three’s decline amid a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals and the worst economic downtown in decades.

Factories were closed, suppliers went out of business, iconic brands were shed and millions of jobs disappeared across the country.

At a show where touchscreen tablet computers were king, Google’s Android operating system was the crown prince.

Motorola Mobility’s Xoom tablet powered by Honeycomb software, a version of Android designed specifically for the touchscreen computers, took the coveted title of best gadget at CES.

Unbeknownst to the person just hit, the collision was staged in order to collect hefty insurance payouts under provincial no-fault insurance programs. The scammers first collect insurance for their car’s replacement value then submit bogus injury claims at health clinics.

Ken Bowman, Vice-President of RBC Insurance, said the growing trend of staged accidents involves buying vehicles, often luxury cars such as Mercedes, and having “seat sales”, in which fraudsters “pay 1,000 dollars for every person recruited to be in the car.”

The annual event is traditionally a showplace for mobile phones, computers and television sets but car makers are grabbing a lot of attention this year with the latest in automotive technology and a glimpse at what’s to come.

US automaker Ford even chose Las Vegas over next week’s Detroit Auto Show to reveal its first all-electric car, the Focus Electric, which can get up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) on a single battery charge and goes on sale this year.

The rate Spain has to pay to borrow on the debt markets ballooned Friday to 5.543 percent, the highest since at least 2000. Its benchmark 10-year bond closed at 5.526 percent, up sharply from 5.46 percent a day before.

The immediate headache was caused by news that Portugal will join Spain, Greece and Italy in issuing debt in the next two weeks, potentially overloading markets already depressed by the prospect of a spreading debt crisis.

The ECB has been battling solvency crises in peripheral eurozone countries and supplying commercial banks with cash to ensure lending to the 17-nation economy but must now consider again its primary mandate: price stability.

Eurozone inflation was expected to hit 2.2 percent in December, the first time in two years it will have breached the central bank’s target of just below 2.0 percent.

The divided country on Saturday broke the 208-day mark set by the Netherlands in 1977 for being without a government after a bid to coax feuding Flemish and French-speaking politicians back to the negotiating table failed.

All eyes will turn to King Albert II on Monday when he decides whether to accept the resignation tendered by his mediator, Flemish socialist Johan Vande Lanotte, whose compromise plan to revive coalition talks was rejected.

The French government meanwhile refused to confirm reports that the three managers were supplying details of the company’s electric cars to China.

Renault number two Patrick Pelata told Saturday’s Le Monde daily that the inquiry that led to the suspensions had concluded that the carmaker was faced with “an organised system of collecting economic, technological and strategic information to serve foreign interests”.

“Motorola’s got game, again,” Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Geldblum said when the Xoom made its debut on Wednesday.

Along with being declared the top creation at the dazzling gadget extravaganza, Xoom was also honored as the best of the scores of tablets introduced here as fresh competitors in a market dominated by Apple iPads.

A memo distributed to potential investors in Facebook shares sold by Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs suggested the emerging Internet giant earned about $500 million last year on sales of nearly $2 billion.

“The document disclosed says $355 million of operating profits for $1.2 billion for the first three quarters” of 2010, said Lou Kerner of Wedbush Securities, a brokerage that owns Facebook shares.

The trade surplus narrowed to $13.1 billion in December, customs authorities said — a sharp drop from the $22.9 billion recorded in November and below analyst forecasts given by Dow Jones Newswires for $21.7 billion.

But the figure will nevertheless add to the already huge volume of money flowing into the world’s second-largest economy, and could fuel inflation.

Along with being declared the top creation at the dazzling gadget extravaganza, Xoom was also honored as the best of the scores of tablets introduced here as fresh competitors in a market dominated by Apple iPads.

Motorola also scored a victory with its Atrix smartphone designed to work with high-speed 4G wireless networks and which can be used in a dock to power a laptop.

Alan Mulally, chief executive of the number two US automaker, introduced the four-door passenger car at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Mulally declined to detail the hatchback’s total range or how much it would cost, but a Ford spokesman said the Focus Electric’s mileage on a single charge would be “competitive” with similar electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf.

Both the U.S. unemployment rate and the amount of idle factory space are abnormally high, stark evidence that the economy is still well below its full potential.

But price pressures are building in commodities despite the ample U.S. economic slack, thanks in large part to demand from emerging markets. The Reuters Jefferies CRB index (.CRB) of commodities is up 28 percent since July.

The cash deal would enable DuPont to enter a niche in the chemical industry – food additives – long dominated by smaller rival International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. It would also solidify existing cooperation between the two companies in the field of technology for advanced bioethanol.

However the acquisition will reduce DuPont’s 2011 earnings of $3.30 to $3.60 per share by a range of 30 cents to 45 cents per share, the company said.

The Chinese government will point to the latest numbers as evidence that it is making steady progress in rebalancing its economy toward domestic consumption, cutting reliance on exports and giving the world a lift through surging demand for imports.

For the United States, however, this may be happening too slowly, with the politically sensitive bilateral trade gap between the world’s two biggest economies widening further in 2010.

Some preliminary discussions on the possibility of Portugal asking for help if its financing costs on markets become too high have taken place since July, the source said.

No formal talks on aid have started yet, a number of euro zone sources said, but the pressure was rising in the Eurogroup, which brings together euro zone finance ministers.

The U.S. power industry has seen a resurgence of deal activity in the past year — despite high regulatory barriers — as utility companies consolidate to cut costs and pool funds for investing in new projects, such as nuclear power plants.

Duke, which has a market value of $23.6 billion, wants to buy Progress in a stock-based deal priced at a low premium to its $13.1 billion market value, one source said. The companies hope to announce a deal on Monday, according to another source, but the talks could still be delayed or even derailed.

As it currently stands, the Fed is assigned by law “to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

But some members of Congress are unhappy with the Fed’s recently launched $600 billion bond buying program, which officials at the central bank say is needed in part because unemployment has been stuck at elevated levels for almost two years.

Leading thinkers in the dismal science speaking at an annual convention offered varying visions of U.S. economic decline, in the short, medium and long term. This year, the recovery may bog down as government stimulus measures dry up.

In the long run, the United States must face up to inevitably being overtaken by China as the world’s largest economy. And it may have missed a chance to rein in its largest financial institutions, many of whom remain too big to fail and are getting bigger.

Coming just at the start of the new year, the Detroit event that opens to the media on Monday is the first of a string of trade shows where automakers clamor to build buzz for vehicles months before they hit showrooms.

The U.S. auto industry snapped a four-year sales decline in 2010, including three consecutive sales months above the 12 million unit annual rate to close the year. Most analysts expect double-digit growth in 2011 and further gains in 2012.

Three Renault (RENA.PA) executives, including one member of its management committee, were suspended on Monday over the leaking of data, which prompted the government to warn of a widespread risk to French industry.

“This is the work of professionals,” Chief Operating Officer Patrick Pelata said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper’s weekend edition. “Renault is the victim of an organized international network.”

Bank shares fell, weighing on broader stock indexes, on fears the decision could threaten lenders’ ability to work through hundreds of thousands of pending foreclosures.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts’ unanimous decision on Friday upheld a lower court ruling. It is among the earliest cases to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation.

The disappointing jobs growth figure reported by the Labor Department on Friday suggested the Federal Reserve would likely stay the course with its effort to support the world’s biggest economy with the purchase of $600 billion in government bonds.

The department’s survey of nonfarm employers showed payrolls increased 103,000 last month, below economists’ expectations for 175,000. Private hiring rose 113,000, while government employment fell 10,000.

As Ford Motor Co prepared to close the books on its biggest comeback year for sales and earnings since the 1980s, Ford was talking to friends about the risk of gridlock choking booming urban centers from Sao Paolo to Shanghai — and potentially choking auto sales, too.

“I want us to start thinking now about how we’re going to solve it,” he said. “Nobody is thinking about it yet in our industry, but it’s going to be upon us fast.”

Rivals determined to prevent Apple Inc from dominating the tablet market the way it did with digital music players unleashed a tidal wave of touchscreen devices at the Consumer Electronics Show.

This year may well produce a viable competitor to Apple’s iPad. But CES only served to underscore the challenge they face.

Stocks in Europe have fallen sharply as Portugal’s market borrowing rates have jumped higher in the wake of the renewed bailout talk.

As stocks dropped, the yield on Portugal’s ten-year bonds rose nearly half a percentage point to 7.14 percent. That’s unsustainable in the medium-term and comes ahead of an auction of euro1.25 billion in three year and nine year bonds on Wednesday.

The country’s politically sensitive trade surplus shrank to $13.1 billion, customs data showed Monday, but analysts said that decline was likely to be temporary and the gap should rebound later in the year.

Hu meets President Barack Obama on Jan. 19 and the White House says Obama will press him over currency controls that critics say are swelling China’s trade surplus and wiping out jobs abroad. Voter anger over the large and rising U.S. trade deficit with China became an issue in October elections.

The new 300, which will be revealed Monday during the show’s opening media day, keeps the basic look of the old: It’s a muscular car with a long hood and short back. But the remade version is sleeker, and Chrysler toned down the gangster-mobile grille and replaced its round headlamps with subtle rectangular ones. Gas mileage went up 8 percent and the interior has softer-looking surfaces and cool-blue dashboard lighting.

Chrysler wants it to attract a broad range of buyers, from those who want a larger car to those who seek high-performance luxury.

If you’re betting that stocks will rise in 2011, the answer is critical. Profits jumped last year largely because companies ran smarter and squeezed more from workers. Sales are picking up, but probably not enough to keep profits from rising fast in the new year unless companies can get even more out of their workers.

“How can they squeeze costs more than they are now?” asks Howard Silverblatt, a senior analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “Are they going to fire more people? We’re down to the skeleton.”

Advocates say the preservation efforts are needed to ensure food is available locally if the national distribution system is ever disrupted. They also say it helps maintain a way of life important to many Americans.

Twenty-five states have farmland preservation programs, and nearly half of them are in the densely populated Northeast, where the loss of fields to housing developments and shopping malls has been rapid and pressing. After losing 21 percent of its farmland in less than two decades, Connecticut increased spending on preservation efforts.

Nearly a decade after the trade center’s south tower fell into it, the building with a sad history of legal and regulatory fights, multiple accidents and a blaze that killed two firefighters will finally be gone. The demise of the 41-story former Deutsche Bank building, just south of ground zero, is at least as welcome to its neighbors as the construction of new trade center towers.

“I love having the light,” said Mary Perillo, whose eighth-floor kitchen window overlooks the busy work site where the steel framework of the Deutsche Bank building is being disassembled. “I love having that black monolith out of my face.”

He tried for a year and a half to lower his mortgage payments through a loan modification, but the government-insured loan that he took out three years ago came with restrictions. The best the bank could offer him was a reduction of $124 per month, leaving Nicholson with a $1,585 payment that he still couldn’t afford.

The bank foreclosed last April, forcing him to move next door into a mobile home on two of the original property’s 10 acres that he had given his daughter a few years before.

It took a few moments to recognize the great white dome bowing forward into the night. Another had fallen onto itself, its peak barely visible over the iron gate. The white walls of the 90-year-old mansion were crushed, the portico collapsed. Haiti’s national palace was destroyed.

It was clear from the first, terrible moments after the quake, when I ran out of my broken house to find the neighborhood behind it gone, that Haiti had suffered a catastrophe unique even in its long history of tragedy.

The economy added 103,000 jobs in December, a figure that fell short of what most economists were hoping for. The unemployment rate did come down, to 9.4 percent from 9.8, but that was partly because people gave up looking for work.

“The labor market ended last year with a bit of a thud,” Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, said after the Labor Department released its monthly jobs report Friday. He said the drop in unemployment wasn’t likely to be sustained.

The expansion by Bharti Airtel into 16 African countries underscores the rise of India in Africa, at a time when much of the focus on foreign investment here has been on China.

The Indian government is raising its diplomatic profile in Africa, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet leading several business delegations in recent years. And Indian companies are striving to keep up with China’s business profile in Africa, taking advantage of historical ties with the continent.

Hard drives crash. CDs and DVDs warp. Companies that store your photos online can go out of business.

Rather than trust his most treasured digital mementoes to technology he saw as all-too-fallible, a team led by the University of California, Santa Cruz economist last month launched a nonprofit he calls the first online storage service to guarantee your data forever.

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s initial 40-year license expires March 21, 2012, less than 15 months from now. And despite a safety and performance record no worse than many of the other 61 reactors that have won 20-year license extensions from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Vernon power plant’s future looks short.

That’s largely because it’s located in the only state in the country with a law saying both houses of its legislature have to give their approval before Vermont regulators can issue a state license for the plant to continue operating.

From the 1920s, when Ford lost its dominant position in the U.S. because it was slow to update the Model T, to the 2000s, when it squandered billions in SUV profits and narrowly avoided bankruptcy, the company stuck with some strategies too long and didn’t pay enough attention to others.

“You often hear people at Ford say we can’t manage prosperity. I think it’s really quite different than that. It’s that we stop changing,” Executive Chairman Bill Ford told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Flakes melted onto wet streets as snowplows – some equipped with global positioning devices since the blizzard foul-up – and salt spreaders sat idle in neighborhoods all over the city.

By nightfall, the National Weather Service reported the highest accumulation citywide was 2 inches in Queens, a mere dusting compared with the holiday storm that dumped 29 inches in Staten Island, 2 feet in Brooklyn and 20 inches in Central Park.

State and Plaquemines Parish officials took media on a boat tour of Barataria Bay, pointing out an area where oil continues to eat away at marshes and protective boom is either absent or has been gobbled up by the oil. The heavily saturated area that reporters saw was 30 feet to 100 feet wide in sections. No cleanup workers were there when reporters toured the area.

The marshes are critical to the Louisiana coast because they protect the shore from hurricanes and serve as a nursery for Gulf sea life.

The document, filed this week by an attorney for Guidant, was requested by U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank, who earlier rejected a guilty plea by Guidant LLC and asked for more information about its compliance programs and community service efforts.

Guidant pleaded guilty last spring to submitting a false and misleading report to the Federal Drug Administration about one defibrillator model, and failing to notify regulators about a safety correction to another line of devices. Guidant agreed to pay $296 million in fines and forfeiture fees in what prosecutors called the largest criminal penalty assessed against a medical device company.

But some mutual fund investors were rewarded with eyebrow-raising returns of more than 40 percent. The key strategy in their playbook? Going small.

The success of that approach stands out in a list of last year’s top-performing stock funds. The largest returns among nine fund categories tracked by Morningstar Inc. are concentrated in those that specialize in stocks of small companies. And “small” is a relative term – it generally refers to companies valued at $2 billion or less.

Secretary Gary Locke had said in October he was open to ordering increases, but needed evidence to support it.

Gov. Deval Patrick responded in a November, sending a letter and scientific report to Locke that said unnecessarily low catch limits were creating an “economic disaster” for local fishermen. The report estimated a $40 million hit in direct losses and foregone catch.

A hedge fund that holds the most shares of North America’s third-largest chain, Ohio-based Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., wants the company’s longtime chief executive ousted as board chairman, accusing him of mismanaging the parks while receiving a bloated salary.

Shareholders will decide at a special meeting Tuesday whether to block company officeholders, including current CEO Richard Kinzel, from serving as chairman. They’ll also decided whether to increase Cedar Fair’s shareholder dividends.