Business news

• Yahoo security problems a story of too little, too late

  18-12-2016 23:39 via news.yahoo.com
  
  By Joseph Menn, Jim Finkle and Dustin Volz SAN FRANCISCO/BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the summer of 2013, Yahoo Inc launched a project to better secure the passwords of its customers, abandoning the use of a discredited technology for encrypting data known as MD5. In August of that year, hackers got hold of more than a billion Yahoo accounts, stealing the poorly encrypted passwords and other information in the biggest data breach on record. Yahoo only recently uncovered the hack and disclose
  
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• Etihad Airways says to trim its workforce to reduce costs

  18-12-2016 23:38 via news.yahoo.com
  
  (Reuters) - Etihad Airways said on Sunday it is cutting jobs in some parts of its business as a part of its restructuring. An Etihad Airways spokesman said that a majority of those affected by the headcount reduction are through "natural attrition" and the vacancies will not be filled. This would involve restructuring in different parts of its business in order to reduce costs, improve productivity and revenue, Etihad said in an emailed statement.
  
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• British Air, union to hold talks over planned cabin crew strike

  18-12-2016 21:11 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Talks aimed at averting a planned Christmas strike by British Airways cabin crews will be held on Monday, conciliation service Acas said. Last week, British Airways said the Unite trade union had called a strike involving one of its five cabin crew fleets on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, Dec. 26. The union said last week that cabin crews had voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a dispute over pay.
  
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• IranAir confirms cutting Airbus order, dropping A380s

  18-12-2016 19:51 via news.yahoo.com
  
  IranAir has trimmed its planned order from Europe's Airbus to 100 planes, partly by dropping superjumbo A380s, the flag carrier's head said on Sunday, confirming an adjustment first reported by Reuters. "Although the nominal value of the contract for 118 Airbus planes had been announced at $25 billion, the A380 planes have been dropped from this contract, so the value of our Airbus contract will not be more than $10 billion," said Farhad Parvaresh, quoted by the state news agency IRNA. In June,
  
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• Virtual assistants expected to top virtual reality in holiday sales

  18-12-2016 18:56 via news.yahoo.com
  
  After dubbing virtual reality as the "next mega tech theme" in a May 2015 industry report, brokerage Piper Jaffray will cut its 2016 estimate for sales of VR headsets by 65 percent to 2.2 million units in an as yet unpublished report. Sales of high-end VR headsets including Facebook Inc's $599 Oculus Rift and Sony Corp's $399 PlayStation VR headset altogether will be about 300,000, reflecting supply constraints at Sony and the technological reality of Oculus and HTC Corp's $799 Vive: only about
  
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• British Airways, union to hold talks over cabin crew strike plan

  18-12-2016 18:53 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Talks aimed at averting a planned Christmas strike by British Airways cabin crew will be held on Monday, conciliation service Acas said. Last week, British Airways said the Unite trade union had called a strike involving one of its five cabin crew fleets on Christmas Day and Boxing Day (Dec. 26). The union said last week that thousands of cabin crew had voted overwhelmingly in favor of strike action in a dispute over pay.
  
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• Saudi Aramco, GE to launch Saudi Arabia's first wind turbine next month

  18-12-2016 18:13 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Saudi Aramco plans to commission its wind turbine pilot project, the first in the kingdom, next month, the state oil company said on Sunday, part of nationwide plans to diversify energy supplies and to meet an increase in demand. The wind turbine, supplied by U.S. company General Electric (GE) will provide power to Saudi Aramco’s bulk plant in Turaif, in northwest Saudi Arabia. "The first electricity is expected to be supplied to the Saudi Aramco bulk plant once commissioning of the wind t
  
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• IranAir's 100 Airbus plane deal close to finalised: IRNA

  18-12-2016 17:59 via news.yahoo.com
  
  DUBAI (Reuters) - A deal for IranAir to purchase 100 passenger planes from Europe's Airbus has been finalised, Iranian state news agency IRNA said on Sunday. A quote from the airline's head, Farhad Parvaresh, implied, however, that the deal was not yet entirely complete. Parvaresh said the contract was in "the stages of finalization ... and Airbus representatives have been in Tehran from the past week so that we can sign this contract after considering all important angles". (Reporting by Dubai
  
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• Air Berlin appoints new CEO following restructuring

  18-12-2016 17:51 via news.yahoo.com
  
  German airline Air Berlin's chief executive is to step down in the new year, to be replaced by a senior manager at Lufthansa following a wide-ranging shake-up of the loss-making carrier. Air Berlin, 29 percent owned by Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways, said on Sunday Stefan Pichler will step down on February 1, two years after he took over, to be replaced by Thomas Winkelmann. Air Berlin has announced a series of restructuring moves in recent weeks that will halve its fleet to around 75 aircraft,
  
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• Daimler CEO doesn't expect Trump to disadvantage European carmakers

  18-12-2016 16:44 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Daimler does not expect Donald Trump to favor U.S. carmakers over their European counterparts, the carmaker's chief executive told a German paper, shrugging off concerns over the president-elect's protectionist rhetoric during his campaign. "I find it hard to believe that it would come to punitive tariffs," Dieter Zetsche told Bild am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday, adding he did not expect any negative consequences for Daimler's factory in Alabama. Zetsche said any protectionism fa
  
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• Air Berlin CEO Pichler to step down in February

  18-12-2016 16:23 via news.yahoo.com
  
  BERLIN (Reuters) - Loss-making German airline Air Berlin said its chief executive Stefan Pichler will step down on February 1, to be replaced by Lufthansa manager Thomas Winkelmann.
  
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• Scotland says it will unveil single market Brexit plan this week

  18-12-2016 13:54 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Scotland will publish proposals this week for how it can remain in the European Union's single market after Britain leaves the bloc, in order to avoid the "national disaster" of a "hard Brexit", the Scottish government said on Sunday. While the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the EU in June, Scotland strongly backed remaining in the bloc. The country's devolved nationalist government has said it wants to stay part of the EU when the rest of the UK leaves, and on Tuesday will put forward
  
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• Cashless Christmas and help booking winter getaway: CBC's Marketplace consumer cheat sheet

  18-12-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  The holidays are a busy time, so here are the consumer stories you may have missed this week.
  
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• Cable giants step up battle against 'free TV' Android box, but can they win?

  18-12-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  Rogers, Bell and Videotron are going after about 45 Canadian companies for selling fully loaded Android TV boxes. But some experts claim legal action is not going to stamp out the growing industry.
  
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• Heralding social, financial change, China aims blow at iron rice bowl

  18-12-2016 02:15 via news.yahoo.com
  
  By David Stanway PINGDINGSHAN, China (Reuters) - China has ordered state firms to smash the decades-old system of providing cradle-to-grave welfare support, known as the country's "iron rice bowl". At the heart of soot-covered Pingdingshan in central China is the Pingmei Shenma Group, a state coal conglomerate that dominates the economy, society and air of the heavily polluted city in Henan province. If they are not closed down, much of the infrastructure will need to be renovated, which State C
  
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• Economy pays tab for Japan Inc's free lunch on overtime

  18-12-2016 02:05 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Japanese workers put up with long hours and unpaid overtime under pressure from cost-saving companies, and figures from government, which wants more money in workers' pockets to boost consumer spending, appear to underestimate the problem. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is trying to enact labor reforms as part of his "Abenomics" plan to end decades of stagnant growth and deflation. Government data shows that Japanese work an average of 14.2 hours of overtime a month, but 2,000 respondents in a recent
  
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• Scotland says to unveil single market Brexit plan this week

  18-12-2016 01:09 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Scotland will publish proposals this week for how it can remain in the European single market after Britain leaves the European Union in order to avoid the "national disaster" of a "hard Brexit", the Scottish government said on Sunday. While the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the EU in the June 23 referendum, Scotland strongly backed remaining in the bloc. "In line with our commitments to explore all options to protect Scotland's interests, we will set out compromise proposals which, w
  
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• Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi to share electric car platform: Nikkei

  18-12-2016 00:16 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Nissan Motor Co , Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp will combine their electric vehicle platforms in an effort to slash prices down to levels comparable to conventional gasoline cars, the Nikkei newspaper said. The strategy comes as auto giants Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp are also aiming to mass-produce battery electric vehicles amid tightening emissions and fuel-economy regulations around the world. Franco-Japanese alliance partners Renault and Nissan have been among the most vocal
  
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