Pending sales of US homes slip from 6-year high

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes dipped in June from a six-year high in May, a sign that sales could stabilize over the next few months.

The National Association of Realtors said Monday that its seasonally adjusted index for pending home sales ticked down 0.4 percent to 110.9 in June. The May reading was revised lower by a percentage point to 111.3, but it was still the highest since December 2006.

The slight decline suggests higher mortgage rates may be starting to slow sales. Still, signed contracts are 10.9 percent higher than they were a year ago. There is generally a one- to two-month lag between a signed contract and a completed sale.

Economists were relieved after seeing only a modest decline. They said that shows higher mortgage rates are having only a small impact on the home sales market.

"All told ... pending home sales held up fantastically well," Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG, an institutional brokerage, said in a note to clients.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has jumped a full percentage point since early May and reached a two-year high of 4.51 percent in late June.

Rates surged after Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Federal Reserve could slow its bond-buying program later this year if the economy continues to improve. The Fed's bond purchases have kept long-term interest rates low, encouraging more borrowing and spending.

In recent weeks, Bernanke and other Fed members have stressed that any change in the bond-buying program will depend on the economy's health, not a set calendar date.

Since those comments, interest rates have declined. The average on the 30-year mortgage was 4.31 percent last week.

Even with higher mortgage rates, signed contracts increased in the West last month. They were unchanged in the Northeast and fell in the South and Midwest.

Home sales and prices have climbed since early last year, buoyed by solid hiring and historically low mortgage rates. Housing has been an important driver of economic growth this year as other parts of the economy have languished, such as manufacturing and business investment.

Sales of previously occupied homes slipped last month, after a big rise in May to the highest level in 3 ½ years.

But new-home sales jumped in June to the fastest pace in five years, boosting confidence that the housing recovery is strengthening.

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Fog delaying some flights at Denver Int'l Airport

DENVER — Fog is delaying flights by about an hour in Denver, and some smaller planes are being diverted to other airports because of the low visibility.

The fog is expected to lift by 9 a.m. Monday.

About 15 commuter flights headed to Denver International Airport have had to instead land in Colorado Springs, Durango and Eagle, as well as to Albuquerque, N.M., and Rapid City, S.D.

Fog is unusual in Denver, which boasts of having more than 300 sunny days a year.

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Justin Smith to serve as Bloomberg Media CEO

NEW YORK — Bloomberg LP says that Justin B. Smith will serve as CEO of its media group, which includes its TV, radio, magazine and digital businesses around the world.

The financial news and information company said Monday that Andrew Lack, who had served as CEO of Bloomberg Media Group since 2008, will become the group's chairman.

Smith will join Bloomberg on Sept. 16.

He most recently served as president of Atlantic Media. Bloomberg says Smith helped transform The Atlantic from a "largely print-centric magazine" to a multi-platform media franchise. Before joining Atlantic Media, he launched the U.S. edition of The Week magazine and was head of corporate strategy at The Economist Group.

Bloomberg is a private company founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who isn't involved in day-to-day decision-making.

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Foreign airlines urged to use GPS at San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — The Federal Aviation Administration is advising all foreign airlines to use a GPS system instead of visual approaches when landing at San Francisco International Airport in the wake of the deadly Asiana Airlines crash.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/17anAKZ ) the FAA issued a recommendation Sunday that the airlines use the GPS system when landing on main runways instead of relying on just their eyes and cockpit instruments.

Pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214 had been cleared to make a visual approach when the plane crash-landed on a runway at the San Francisco airport July 6. Three girls died, and 180 people were injured.

The FAA says that since then, pilots for Asiana and other foreign carriers have had more aborted landings than usual while trying to make visual approaches. The agency didn't provide exact numbers.

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Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com

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Group accuses Apple supplier of labor abuses

BEIJING — A labor rights group Monday accused a Chinese company that makes iPhones for Apple Inc. of abuses including withholding employees' pay and excessive working hours.

China Labor Watch said it found violations of the law and of Apple's pledges about working conditions at factories operated by Pegatron Corp., a Taiwanese company.

Conditions in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and other popular Apple products have been under scrutiny following complaints about labor and environmental violations by a different supplier, Taiwan's Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.

Apple said in a statement it was "committed to providing safe and fair working conditions" and would investigate the claims about Pegatron. The Taiwanese company's chief executive, in a separate statement, also promised to investigate.

China Labor Watch said its investigation covered two factories in Shanghai and one in Suzhou, a nearby city, that employ a total of 70,000 people. It found violations including discrimination against ethnic minorities and women, excessive work hours, poor living conditions, health and safety problems and pollution.

Pegatron assembles products including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 for Apple, according to the report.

Apple said it confirmed one accusation by China Labor Watch — that identity cards of some workers were being held by management — and told Pegatron to stop.

Apple has published a code of conduct for its suppliers and joined the Fair Labor Association, a worker rights monitoring group. The association inspected Foxconn factories early last year and said in August that improvements it recommended were being carried out ahead of schedule.

Conditions in factories in China are a sensitive issue for foreign companies that outsource production of shoes, consumer electronics and other goods to local contractors.

In its report Monday, China Labor Watch said the majority of Pegatron production employees worked 66 to 69 hours a week, far above China's legal limit of 49 hours. It said pregnant women sometimes were required to work 11-hour days, more than the eight-hour legal limit, and employees were pressured to falsify time cards to conceal the violations.

The group accused Pegatron of "discriminatory hiring practices" including refusing to hire those older than 35 or members of China's Hui, Tibetan, or Uighur ethnic minorities.

The group said production line workers sometimes dump water laced with hazardous chemicals from cutting tools into sewers.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, said it would send auditors to three Pegatron facilities this week to investigate the report's claims.

The company said it has conducted 15 comprehensive audits of Pegatron facilities since 2007, including surprise audits in the past 18 months. It said the audits covered more than 130,000 employees.

"Apple is committed to providing safe and fair working conditions throughout our supply chain," the company statement said. "If our audits find that workers have been underpaid or denied compensation for any time they've worked, we will require that Pegatron reimburse them in full."

The company said its own audit found Pegatron employees making Apple products worked 46 hours per week on average.

Pegatron, founded in 2008, also manufactures desktop and notebook personal computers, LCD televisions, broadband and wireless systems and other products.

"We take these allegations very seriously," said Pegatron CEO Jason Cheng in a statement. "We will investigate them fully and take immediate actions to correct any violations to Chinese labor laws and our own code of conduct."

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Greece pleads for Europe to adopt growth policies

ATHENS, Greece — Greece's prime minister on Monday urged European leaders to shift economic policies toward generating growth, as the country's bailout monitors complained it was making "slow progress" on key long-term reforms.

Antonis Samaras warned Greece's recession was hurting the government's efforts to reduce debt. It was "worsening problems that we must solve and complicating reforms which we must complete," he said.

But Samaras, who held talks in Athens with Italian Premier Enrico Letta, said a Greek recovery would not be possible unless the 17-country eurozone bloc as a whole emerges from recession.

"Greece, Italy and all of Europe are in need of policies that combine reforms and deficit reduction with growth," Samaras said. "Of course we cannot have growth while Europe is retreating into recession."

The eurozone slipped back into recession in late 2011, while Greece's economy has been contracting rapidly since late 2008 and remains in serious crisis.

Greece's public finances have been kept afloat since 2010 by a recue loan program funded by eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund set to total 240 billion euros ($319 billion). But austerity reforms demanded in return for the money have triggered a dramatic increased in poverty and unemployment.

In a 234-page report released Monday, the European Commission, the EU executive branch that helps monitor the bailout program, said Greece was still lagging in its effort to reform public administration, its business rules, power utilities, and its generally slow justice system.

"Greece continues to make overall, albeit often slow, progress ... with several important actions being delayed," the report said.

It warned the outlook for this year and next remains highly uncertain. The budget deficit is expected to exceed the official target by 1.75 and 2 percentage points of annual GDP in 2015 and 2016.

To make up for the shortfall this year and next, Greece has agreed to implement a new tax on luxury products, raise court fees for lawsuits, impose a docking fee for leisure boats in October and further cut military spending.

On the upside, the report said tourism, a key earner worth about 16 percent of Greece's annual output, is expected to do well this year, with pre-bookings data suggesting arrivals are set to increase more than 10 percent compared with 2012.

Italian Premier Letta appeared to agree with Samaras that bailout lenders were too focused on debt cuts rather than economic growth, and was sharply critical of how Greece's rescue was handled.

"I have no doubts about Greece," he said. "There were serious mistakes made by Europe over these past years, with the wrong tools and the wrong timing ... Fewer European jobs would have been lost if Europe had taken a different position toward Greece from the start."

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AP Television's Rafael Kominis in Athens, and AP writer Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed.

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Alterra Coffee changes name, splits with Mars

MILWAUKEE — Alterra Coffee is changing its name and parting ways with Mars, Inc.

Alterra owners say nothing will change except for its name, which will now be Colectivo (col-ehk-TEE'-voh), inspired by the artsy buses used for public transportation in Latin America.

The Milwaukee-based Alterra sold the brand name to Mars in 2010, which allowed Mars to distribute the coffee globally. The revenue allowed Alterra to expand its cafes to other Wisconsin cities, including Madison.

Mars will still be able to distribute coffee under the Alterra name.

The original Alterra founders — Lincoln Fowler, Ward Fowler and Paul Miller — will maintain control of Colectivo Coffee.

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Britain demands cash bonds for visas from 6 states

LAGOS, Nigeria — Britain's Home Office confirmed Monday it will demand a 3,000-pound ($4,630) refundable bond for visas for "high-risk" visitors from six former colonies in Africa and Asia — a pilot scheme that has brought warnings at home and abroad that it will damage trade.

Britain said in a statement Monday that it will go ahead with the pilot scheme despite the outrage, charges of discrimination and warnings of retaliation.

The statement sent by email did not say when the pilot program would start. But it said it could apply the scheme in the future for all visas and any country.

"The pilot will apply to visitor visas, but if the scheme is successful we'd like to be able to apply it on an intelligence-led basis on any visa route and any country," it said.

For now, the targeted countries are Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Government data shows citizens of those countries applied for more than half a million visas to Britain last year.

Khaled Mahmud, owner of a Bangladeshi travel agency in Dhaka that deals with British student visas, charged the scheme was racist. "It smacks of a deep-rooted racial attitude," he told The Associated Press on Monday.

In the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, computer businessman Syed Shahid Ali said the "painful and unbearable" new policy would have a negative impact on British tourism and business.

"How can someone who wants to visit the U.K. for a couple of days for business meetings or something else afford to set aside 3,000 pounds" said Ali, who travels there frequently. "He will simply prefer to go and do business elsewhere in Europe instead of getting into this problem of giving a bond and getting reimbursed."

Haider Abbas Rizvi, a former Pakistani lawmaker, said the British government should review its decision because it would hurt a lot of Pakistanis who have family members living in Britain and who cannot afford the bond.

"There are just a few people who deviate from the system or break the law, so instead of bringing common travelers and law-abiding people under the possible financial burden, there should be strict surveillance on the violators of law in the U.K. or elsewhere," Rizvi told the AP.

Nigeria's government made a formal demand last month that Britain renounce the proposal. Foreign Affairs Minister Olugbenga Ashiru called in the British high commissioner to express "the strong displeasure of the government and people of Nigeria" over the "discriminatory" policy.

Ashiru warned the move would "definitely negate" the two country's commitment to double trade by 2014. Figures from Nigeria's Ministry of Trade and Commerce show trade between the two countries increased nearly five-fold from $2.35 billion in 2010 to $11.57 billion last year, with the value of Nigerian imports of British goods doubling in that time.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and a huge market with its more than 160 million people.

There was such an outcry in Nigeria when the scheme first was mooted last month that British High Commissioner Andrew Pocock put out a statement assuring that the pilot scheme would not affect most Nigerians.

"The vast majority would not be required to pay a bond," Pocock said. He added that more than 180,000 Nigerians apply to visit Britain each year and about 70 percent — around 126,000 — get visas.

There were protests in India last month when British Prime Minister David Cameron visited, causing him to declare that a final decision had not been taken on the policy.

The Home Office said it hopes the bond system deters overstaying of visas and recovers costs of foreign nationals using public services like hospitals and schools.

Immigration was a key issue in Cameron's election campaign for his Conservative Party. Cameron has pledged to cut net immigration from 252,000 a year in 2010 to 100,000 a year by 2015.

One move that has come under heavy criticism recently has been a government campaign targeting people who overstay their visas. Billboards were put on two vans for a week in six of London's boroughs. Their message said: "In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest." Leaflets with the same message will be distributed for a month.

The Home Office statement said the visa bond "is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain."

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Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds in London, Farid Hossain in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Zarar Khan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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Bank of Cyprus depositors lose 47.5 pct of savings

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Depositors at bailed-out Cyprus' largest bank will lose 47.5 percent of their savings exceeding 100,000 euros ($132,000), the government said Monday.

The figure comes four months after Cyprus agreed on a 23 billion-euro ($30.5 billion) rescue package with its euro partners and the International Monetary Fund. In exchange for a 10 billion euro loan, deposits worth more than the insured limit of 100,000 euros at the Bank of Cyprus and smaller lender Laiki were raided in a so-called bail-in to prop up the country's teetering banking sector.

The savings raid prompted Cypriot authorities to impose restrictions on money withdrawals and transfers for all banks to head off a run. Christopher Pissarides, the Nobel laureate who heads the government's economic advisory body, forecast Monday that the bank controls could be in place for another two years.

"The (economy) has absorbed the initial shock and is moving ahead. We see things improving," he told reporters after talks with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades Monday.

As part of the bail-in of Bank of Cyprus, depositors taking losses — estimated roughly at around 4 billion euros — will get shares in the bank. Those depositors hardest hit are pension funds belonging to employees for state-run companies, followed by private savers of which some of the biggest are Russians.

Depositors at Laiki, which is being wound down and folded into Bank of Cyprus, saw most of their uninsured savings wiped out and are unlikely to get any shares in Bank of Cyprus.

The government insisted in negotiations with the Cyprus Central Bank and officials from the country's international creditors — currently conducting their first post-rescue deal assessment — that the Bank of Cyprus could remain afloat with less money from depositors.

Government spokesman Victoras Papadopoulos said the most significant part of the Bank of Cyprus bail-in is that the lender has turned a corner in its restructuring process, allowing control of the lender to soon return to the hands of private shareholders.

"This constitutes an important step in the stabilization of both the bank, and the Cypriot economy," said Papadopoulos.

Bank of Cyprus officials say they a meeting of the lender's new shareholders will be convened in early September. The bank will complete its restructuring — which will see the departure of hundreds of employees either through voluntary retirement packages or layoffs — by the end of the same month.

The Cyprus government is looking to the European Central Bank to provide a restructured Bank of Cyprus with as much liquidity as it needs to help turn the country's tanking economy around by lending to cash-starved businesses.

Anastasiades last month warned ECB chief Mario Draghi that Bank of Cyprus' cash reserves were running dangerously low.

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Boeing requests wider scrutiny of locator beacons

Boeing Co. has expanded inspections of emergency locator beacons made by Honeywell International to include five more aircraft types after problems were discovered with the transmitters on 787 jets.

Boeing's marketing vice president Randy Tinseth says in a blog dated Sunday that the aircraft manufacturer is asking operators of 717, Next-Generation 737, 747-400, 767 and 777 airplanes to inspect the battery-operated beacons which activate in a crash to help rescuers find a plane.

United Airlines and All Nippon Airways last week disclosed issues with the wiring on their Boeing 787's emergency transmitters, the same part of the plane that is getting close scrutiny after a parked Ethiopian Airlines jet caught fire at London's Heathrow earlier this month.

Boeing said its expanded request for inspections follows a recommendation by the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch that airplane models with the Honeywell locator beacons be scrutinized.

"The purpose of these inspections is to gather data to support potential rulemaking by regulators," said Tinseth.

United Airlines said Friday it found a pinched wire during an inspection of one of its six 787s. Japan's All Nippon Airways found damage to wiring on two Boeing 787 locater beacons. It flies 20 of the jets.

The inspections of 787 Dreamliner jets were mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration for U.S. airlines after the fire in the tail of the Ethiopian Airlines 787.

U.K. investigators said the only thing in the tail section with enough power to fuel a fire like that was the emergency transmitter.

Dreamliner jets were grounded worldwide in January after separate problems with lithium-ion batteries that overheated or caught fire. Flights resumed four months later after a revamped battery system was installed in the airplanes.

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