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Star-Bulletin staff & wire reports
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NATION
Amazon's holiday sales set record
Amazon.com Inc., the world's biggest online retailer, said holiday sales worldwide set a record this year on demand for
Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod music players, video games and jewelry.
Shoppers bought more than 108 million items between Nov. 1 and Christmas, the Seattle-based retailer said in a statement yesterday. The company didn't provide revenue figures. The busiest single day was Monday, Dec. 12, when customers ordered 3.6 million items.
Different iPods models were the top three-selling items in electronics for Amazon.com. Overall, online sales in the United States are expected to jump 24 percent to about $19 billion in November and December as the convenience of Internet shopping and free shipping lure consumers, according to ComScore Networks Inc. The most popular goods on the Web include clothing, electronics and toys.
WORLD
Deal will create biggest retailer
TOKYO »
Seven & I Holdings Co., owner of 7-Eleven convenience stores in Japan and the United States, said yesterday it will pay $1.13 billion to buy department store operator
Millennium Retailing Inc. in a deal creating Japan's biggest retailer.
Tokyo-based Seven & I will complete the transaction in two steps, first buying a 65 percent stake in Millennium held by Nomura Principal Finance for $1.13 billion in cash by the end of March, Seven & I said in a statement.
It will then buy the remaining 35 percent directly from Millennium in a stock swap by June. Millennium is an unlisted company.
Aside from 7-Eleven, Seven & I also owns the Ito-Yokado supermarket chain. Millennium owns Japanese retailers Sogo Co. and Seibu Department Stores Ltd.
Minister says deflation persists
The Bank of Japan's conditions for it to shift monetary policy haven't been met after core consumer prices rose last month for the first time in two years, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said.
"The state of deflation still persists," Tanigaki said at a regular press conference today in Tokyo. "There is no change in the circumstances in which the government and the central bank must make joint efforts to beat it."
Japan's consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, rose 0.1 percent in November from a year earlier, the first increase since October 2003, and only the second time in more than seven years, the government said today. The gain matched the median forecast of 30 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Yen falls on economic weakness
The yen fell the most against the euro in more than two months and had the biggest loss versus the dollar in a week after reports showed Japanese household spending unexpectedly slid and unemployment increased.
The yen, which had the biggest fluctuation today of any currency, weakened to 117.10 against the dollar in Tokyo from 116.32 late yesterday, according to EBS, an electronic foreign-exchange dealing system. Against the euro, the yen was at 138.68, from 137.70.
The slide accelerated after the yen weakened past 116.50 against the dollar, a level where traders had pre-set orders to buy the U.S. currency, said Shuichi Kato, head of foreign-exchange and proprietary trading at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo. Traders sometimes place so-called stop loss orders to limit losses in case their bets go the wrong way. The dollar may rise to 121 yen by the end of the next month, Kato said.
Goldman ordered to clean up in Japan
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable overseas brokerage in Japan, was ordered to improve its asset-management business by Japan's financial regulator after it violated investment advisory rules.
Goldman Sachs Assets Management Co. breached regulations by intentionally transferring misordered securities to other customer accounts, the Financial Services Agency said today.
The regulator ordered Goldman to submit a report by Jan. 26 detailing how it would strengthen compliance and its internal control systems relating to investment advisory, the statement said.
Indonesia needs $2.5 billion to rebuild
Indonesia, which had the highest number of deaths in last year's Indian Ocean tsunami, needs as much as an additional $2.5 billion over the next three years to rebuild Aceh province and the island of Nias.
International donors have pledged $7.5 billion to Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi, or BRR, the agency responsible for the reconstruction, according to a report issued by the agency last night. The BRR needs between $8 billion to $10 billion in the next three years, the statement said.
Japan to stop release of oil reserves to U.S.
TOKYO » Japan will end its release of oil reserves to the United States next week, a news report quoted the economy minister as saying today.
Japan has been shipping oil from its reserves under a plan brokered by the International Energy Agency to temper rising prices after Hurricane Katrina struck U.S. oil refineries.
"The impact of hurricane damage on the global oil market has been mitigated," Japan's Kyodo News quoted the Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai as telling reporters.
The Paris-based IEA announced in September that its 26 members, including Japan, would draw on 2 million barrels a day of oil to help offset the loss of output and refining capacity in the United States caused by Katrina and to restore confidence in the market.
Under the release plan, Japan has kept an emergency stockpile equivalent to 67 days of imports over the coming 30-day period. Japan normally keeps a 70-day minimum. The three-day difference is equal to about 10 million barrels.