The US is putting pressure on China to let the yuan rise ahead of the Chinese president's visit by setting a deadline for currency reform after the G20 summit failed to reach an agreement. Meanwhile, Google is giving pay hikes of 30% and bonuses of 250% of base salary to its top executives. Dabur India is buying US hair care company Namaste Laboratories for $100 million to expand in Africa.

1. FROM 15TH TO 20TH
NOV.

2. US turns up heat on China
• The US called on China to let the yuan rise before President
Hu Jintao’s planned January trip to Washington, setting a
deadline for results after Group of 20 leaders failed to reach a
broad agreement on currencies.
• The US push for quick action comes a day after President
Barack Obama ramped up his criticism of China’s policies,
calling the yuan “undervalued” at the G-20 Summit in Seoul.
“No nation should assume that their path to prosperity is
simply paved with exports to America,” Obama said in a
speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in
Yokohama.

3. Google lines up pay hike, bonus for top
executives
• Internet search giant Google has approved a pay hike of 30% and bonuses
of 250% of the base salary for its top executives starting next year. Google
has approved an increase to the annual base salaries (effective as of
January 1, 2011) of its executive officers.
• The base salaries of Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry
Page and Sergey Brin would remain at $1. The three executives do not
participate in the executive bonus plan since 2004.
• Google said its four top executives — Patrick Pichette, Chief Financial
Officer, Global Business Head Nikesh Arora, Engineering-and-Research
Chief Alan Eustace and product chief Jonathan Rosenberg — would each
see their increase in pay from $500,000 to $650,000 next year. This
represents a rise of 30%.
• The news comes days after several media reported that Google is
planning to give a 10 per cent salary hike to all of its 23,000 employees
across the world starting next year.

4. Dabur buys US hair care co for $100 m
• Dabur India has bought US-based hair care company Namaste
Laboratories and its three subsidiaries for $100 million ( 446 crore) in an
all-cash deal as Indian consumer product companies continue their global
acquisition spree.
• Dabur plans to aggressively grow Namaste’s sales in Africa. Dabur India
group director PD Narang said the deal will add to Dabur’s oral-care and
skincare businesses in the African continent.
• Dabur is among a slew of Indian consumer product companies such as
Marico, Godrej Consumer Products and Wipro Consumer Care that are
trying to turn into multinationals with presence in high-growth markets
such as Africa, West Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia through a slew of
acquisitions.
• Dabur made its first overseas acquisition in September when it bought
Turkish personal care company Hobi Kozmetick — which sells haircare and
skincare products in 34 countries mostly in the Middle-East and North
Africa — for 324 crore ($69 million).

5. ArcelorMittal eyes US-based coal company
• World's largest steel producer ArcelorMittal has expressed interest
in buying the troubled USbased coal firm Massey Energy Co.
• Luxembourg-based Arcelor's preliminary exploration of a possible
deal began a few months ago and is in the early stages
• Coal India chairman Partha Bhattacharyya had said that the
company is in talks to acquire mines from two US companies ,
Peabody Energy Corp and Massey Energy Co.

6. Hong Kong unveils new measures to cool
property market
• The Hong Kong government unveiled new measures on Friday
aimed at cooling the property market amid public discontent at
spiralling prices and fears of a real estate bubble .
• Financial Secretary John Tsang announced new stamp duties that
will take effect from Friday aimed at restraining what he called
"short-term speculative" inflows into the glitzy financial hub's
property market.
• "These are extraordinary measures under exceptional
circumstances. Our aim is to curb short-term speculative activities
and to reduce the risk of any asset bubble," Tsang told journalists.

7. Vodafone drops Muslim scientist ad after
complaints
• The Egyptian unit of telecom giant Vodafone has dropped an
advertisement depicting an early Muslim scientist, Abbas Ibn Firnas, as a
dim man who fell off a cliff when trying to fly with feathered wings.
• The Britain-based company made the decision after receiving complaints
from viewers, who took to the social networking sites Facebook and
Twitter to complain about what they said was an insult to the historic
Islamic figure.
• Vodafone said the advertisement was supposed to be funny but "due to
the fact that some of our customers perceived (it) as offensive, we
decided to remove this ad from YouTube and from our official Facebook
fans page.
• Ibn Firnas, a Muslim Berber scientist who died in 887, is said to have
jumped from a height, wings attached and covered head to toe in
feathers, in a failed attempt at flying, although he survived the jump.

8. POSCO to set up $ 1.4 bn steel plant in Korea
• South Korean steel giant POSCO , embroiled in environment issues
over its plant in Orissa, today announced setting up of a USD 1.4
billion plan in Korea.
• The company said it would invest 1.6 trillion won (1.4 billion dollars)
in the plant at Gwangyang city on the south coast, with production
capacity of 3.3 million tonnes a year of hot-rolled coil steel by
January 2014.
• It will also build a plant in the western Indian state of Maharashtra
by December 2013 with a 1.8 million-tonne-a-year capacity for cold-
rolled coil.
• The company said Indian demand for cold-rolled steel products for
automobiles and home appliances is expected to rise by more than
12 percent annually through 2018.

9. Dutch military plans to cut 10,000 jobs
• The Dutch government has announced it will axe 10,000 defence ministry
jobs, about one post in seven, under austerity measures to cut the budget
deficit in the wake of the credit crisis.
• Defence Minister Hans Hillen told Parliament that "fundamental choices"
needed to be made because of a shortage of funds for the military,
stressing that the available budget fell short of the military's ambitions.
• The new coalition government aims to cut the Dutch budget by 18 billion
euros to 269.8 billion euros ($377 billion) in 2015, with 200 million euros in
cuts planned for the defence ministry in 2011 alone.
• At the same time the government wants to send a training mission to
Afghanistan, just months after the previous administration collapsed over
its involvement there and pulled troops out of the country.
• Currently about 68,000 people are employed by the defence ministry, it
said on its website.