latest world business news

The Group of 20 has tried on Thursday  at Seoul of South Korea  to agree how to put the world economy on a sounder footing as renewed fears over Ireland's ability to pay its debts underscored the lingering fallout of the global financial crisis. The G20 had hoped to use the two-day summit to recapture the unity forged in the depths of the crisis two years ago in order to soothe tensions over exchange rates generated by imbalances between cash-rich exporting nations and debt-burdened importers. But even as U.S. President Barack Obama voiced confidence that leaders would find a formula for more balanced and sustainable growth, negotiators squabbled over the language in a closing statement to be issued when the summit ends on Friday. "The persistence of these imbalances is a problem in the long term and these things have to be addressed," said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "Will they be addressed at this conference? I'm not so sure, but I think we'...

The world's most demanded and user-friendly Internet search leader Google Inc is not building a social network to compete with Facebook, a company executive reiterated on Thursday, despite an intensifying rivalry between the two leading Internet groups. "We're not working on a social network platform that's just going to be another social network platform," Google's head of mobile product development, Hugo Barra, said in answer to a question at the Monaco Media Forum. "We do think that social networking is an ingredient for success for any application going forward, search and advertising being probably the best two examples that I would mention. So that's how we're thinking about the problem." Social networking has exploded in popularity and begun to reshape the balance of power in the Web industry. Facebook, launched in 2004, has more than 500 million members. Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in September the company intended to...