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BRUSSELS The next president of the Eurogroup, the monthly meeting of euro zone finance ministers, should be a head of government, Austria’s Finance Minister Maria Fekter said on Tuesday. The committee is one of the most powerful in the EU and has taken or prepared some of the most important decisions in the debt crisis over the past three years. Jean-Claude Juncker, who has headed the Eurogroup since 2005, confirmed on Monday that he will step down at the end of this year. Juncker is Luxembourg’s prime minister as well as its treasury minister, giving him particular clout in discussions. [...]

LONDON HSBC said its strategy and planning boss John Flint is to take over as head of retail banking and wealth management (RBWM) next year to replace veteran banker Paul Thurston, who is retiring. Europe’s biggest bank said Flint will become chief executive on January 1 of RBWM, one of the bank’s four global businesses. Previously known as personal financial services, RBWM has more than 50 million customers and made an operating profit of $ 4.3 billion last year, a fifth of the group. Flint, 44, joined HSBC in 1989 and has worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, India, [...]

LOS ANGELES Japanese stocks fell in early Wednesday trading, following a loss on Wall Street over concerns about slow negotiations on the U.S. fiscal cliff. After a series of recent advances, the Nikkei Stock Average fell 0.5% to 9,376.07, with the Topix also down 0.5%, and as the yen remained in a tight range against the dollar and euro. Exporters, which had led much of the gains over the past days, moved lower, with Pioneer Corp. falling 3%, Mazda Motor Corp. losing 1.6%, and Sony Corp. down 1% amid a Reuters report that investment banks had approached the firm over [...]

SAN FRANCISCO Apple Inc. has fired the executive who was in charge of the controversial mapping application included in the recently updated iOS 6 mobile operating system and shipped with the iPhone 5. According to a report by AllThingsD, Rich Williamson has left the company after overseeing development of the application, which has been roundly criticized as inferior to the Google Maps application that was embedded in previous versions of the iOS platform. The technology blog cited an unnamed source “with direct knowledge of the matter.” Apple itself has not announced the move. The company’s shares were last trading down about 0.9% at $ 584.30.

SAN FRANCISCO The dollar turned up and Treasury prices resumed a small decline on Tuesday after a report showed U.S. housing starts unexpectedly rose to a 894,000 pace last month. The dollar index , which measures the greenback’s performance against a basket of six major currencies, turned up slightly to 80.886, reclaiming a gain before the data and versus 80.854 in late North American trade Monday. The euro traded at $ 1.2813 compared with $ 1.2816 Monday. Yields on 10-year notes , which move inversely to prices, rose 1 basis point to 1.63%. Traders will tune into a speech by [...]

SEATTLE The executive most widely tipped to be the next chief executive of Microsoft Corp has left the world’s largest software maker barely two weeks after launching the flagship Windows 8, as CEO Steve Ballmer moved to tighten his grip on the company. The exit of 23-year company veteran Steven Sinofsky, head of Microsoft’s Windows unit, is the latest – and most prominent – in a line of high-profile departures from the Redmond, Washington-based company, which is struggling to keep pace with Apple Inc and Google Inc in mobile computing. The move was unexpected and neither Microsoft nor Sinofsky gave [...]

Microsoft Corp said the head of its flagship Windows division and the driving force behind Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, will be leaving the company with immediate effect, days after the software giant launched the Surface tablet. Sinofsky, who presented at the launch of the Windows 8 operating system in New York City last month, will be succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who will head the Windows hardware and software division, the company said in a statement. Tami Reller will remain chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows. Both executives will report directly [...]

LOS ANGELES Microsoft Corp. said late Monday that the head of its Windows division was leaving his post, effective immediately. Windows and Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky was leaving the company, with Julie Larson-Green, who worked on the development of Windows 7 and Windows 8, promoted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller was to take over “responsibility for the business of Windows,” the company said in a statement. Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said: “As I looked at the technical and business skills required to continue our Windows trajectory … it was [...]

MILAN Finmeccanica SpA chief Giuseppe Orsi reiterated that he would not step down from Europe’s third-biggest defense group but said in a newspaper interview that he favored separating the roles of chairman and chief executive. Orsi, the subject of a high-profile corruption probe that has cast a shadow over his position at the group, told Italian daily Il Messaggero that he had only accepted the dual role at the request of the Italian government, Finmeccanica’s main shareholder. “A group as complex as Finmeccanica needs a chairman who guarantees stability and supports the management,” Orsi said in the interview published on [...]

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has suspended its head of rates trading in Asia and Europe.Royal Bank of Scotland has suspended its head of rates trading in Europe and Asia PacificMost senior employee to be put on leave so far as the bank investigates Libor scandal(Financial Times) — Royal Bank of Scotland has suspended its head of rates trading in Europe and Asia Pacific, the most senior employee to be put on leave so far as the bank investigates its alleged role in the interbank lending rate scandals.Jezri Mohideen was suspended last week as part of the bank’s continuing investigation [...]