The launch of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China on Sunday has the backing of the top level of government, with Premier Wen Jiabao underscoring the need for the country to pursue independent innovation.

"China should by all means conduct overall design and final assembly of large aircraft by itself," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying.

There was no indication in the media report about when the company would build its first plane.

Despite its goal of eventually challenging Airbus and Boeing, the global giants of commercial aviation, fulfilling the ambition will take time, said Jin Zhuanglong, president of the new aerospace group.

"China's jumbo jet program will not pose a threat to Boeing and Airbus, at least in the coming 20 years," Jin said in Monday's China Daily, an English-language paper whose readership is aimed at the foreign community.

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest softwaremaker, asked a court to overturn or reduce a record $1.4 billion European Union fine for failing to comply with an antitrust ruling.

The appeal was filed at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, Microsoft spokesman Jesse Verstraete said. The company is attempting to seek clarity from the court, he said.

"There's a fairly good record of the court lowering fines the commission has made upon appeal," said Philip Marsden, a competition lawyer and senior research fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, who isn't involved in the case. "It's the company's legal right to appeal such fines, particularly with respect to orders regarding compliance with such a controversial and vague set of requirements."

The European Commission, the EU's antitrust authority, fined the company Feb. 27 for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust order. Under that decision, the EU ordered the softwaremaker to provide data to rivals to allow servers to connect to the Windows platform.

The two companies said the deal aims to accelerate the development of Carphone Warehouse's retail business and to introduce Best Buy stores across Europe.

Carphone Warehouse is Europe's largest independent mobile-phone retailer by sales, while Best Buy is the largest electronics retailer in the U.S.

The pair already have a partnership whereby Carphone Warehouse operates out of Best Buy stores in the U.S.

Carphone Warehouse said it will use the proceeds of the deal to repay existing debt, invest in broadband customer growth and infrastructure and to invest in new areas of growth. Carphone Warehouse Chief Financial Officer Roger Taylor said the deal will be 10% to 15% earnings dilutive initially but despite the short-term hit to earnings will deliver long-term value for shareholders.

Analysts said the deal was a positive move which will reduce debt and free up capital to invest in the telecoms business. Landsbanki analyst Dan Gardiner said that based on earnings dilution of 10% to 15%, Carphone Warehouse's shares trade at 14 times estimated 2009 earnings which "still represents a significant premium to both the general retail and telecoms sector."

"We're approaching the second decade of (the) digital age," Gates told Lee at the start of their meeting at the presidential Blue House, according to a media pool report.

South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor Inc. and affiliate Kia Motors Corp. announced with Microsoft Tuesday that they will use Microsoft's in-car software for controlling personal music players and telephones with voice commands.

"We're doing some very interesting work on automobile software," Gates said after dining with Lee. "That's a really wide open area."

The three companies also plan to set up an automobile innovation center. Hyundai and Kia form the world's sixth-largest automotive group.

Separately, Microsoft also said Tuesday that it will invest $280 million in a new research and development center in Beijing and will double its full-time research staff in China to 3,000 people in three to five years.

Lee, a conservative former construction CEO, swept into office in February with a vow to boost economic growth through deregulation and increased foreign investment.

He named Gates to his global advisory committee on Tuesday.

The joint projects in South Korea announced during Gates' visit could trigger $6.9 billion in economic impact over the next five years, the Blue House statement quoted Gates as saying.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a TV chef whose main contact with rice is cooking it, has revived the long-dormant idea of a price-setting body involving producers Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

The proposal, which threatens to add to global food supply fears amid record high rice prices, failed to gain traction seven years ago when it was first floated by Bangkok and most see little chance it will fare better this time around.

"I don't think it would work. All they can do is agree on a price, but they can't control the supply like oil," said Graham Catterwell, an economic analyst with 30 years of experience in Thailand and the region. "It's going nowhere."

The five mainland Southeast Asian nations produce a combined 60 million tonnes of milled rice each year, about 14 percent of world output. But only Thailand, the world's number one rice exporter, and Vietnam have major surpluses, last year accounting for about 47 percent of world rice trade.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline on Friday was $3.62 a gallon, up 15 cents from two weeks ago. Mid-grade was at $3.74 and premium was $3.85. That's all according to the Lundberg Survey of 7,000 stations nationwide released Sunday.

Regular gasoline is up 55 cents since 2008 began.

Of the cities surveyed, the cheapest price was in Cheyenne, Wyo., where a gallon of regular cost $3.39, on average. The highest average was in San Francisco at $3.95.

Across California, the statewide average for a gallon of regular was $3.90, mid-grade was at $4.01 and premium at $4.11.

4:01pm 05/02/2008

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Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.
In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.

The switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply.

In another first, fuel-sipping four-cylinder engines surpassed six-cylinder models in popularity in April.

BP is waiting for the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, closed by a strike, to resume power and steam supplies and aims to start the pipeline later today, spokeswoman Joanne McDonald said. The U.S. currency headed for its first monthly advance versus the yen and euro since December as traders increased bets the Fed will stop reducing borrowing costs after tomorrow.

``People will be looking at the dollar, bar the obvious supply concerns,'' said Rowan Menzies, head of research at Commodity Warrants Australia Ltd. in Sydney. ``The dollar will get a short-term bullish boost from the Fed and that's going to cause the oil price to come down.''

Crude oil for June delivery declined as much as $1.03, or 0.9 percent, to $117.72 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was at $117.88 at 9:41 a.m. London time.

Brent crude for June settlement fell as much as $1.22, or 1.1 percent, to $115.52 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was at $115.65 at 9:41 a.m. London time.