(02-26) 05:20 PST BEIJING, China (AP) —

China’s largest producer of plastic bags said Tuesday it has closed more than a month after the government announced a high-profile ban on stores handing out free bags in an effort to clean up the environment.

Huaqiang factory, in central Henan province, closed at the beginning of February, said a woman who answered the telephone at the factory. All 10,000 workers at the factory were sent home, said the woman, who gave only her family name, Hai, as is common in China.

Last month, China announced a ban on stores handing out free plastic shopping bags in a bid to cut waste and conserve resources. The ban takes effect June 1, two months before Beijing hosts the Summer Olympic Games, and will eliminate the flimsiest bags and force stores to charge to more durable bags.

The measure was announced by the State Council, China’s Cabinet. The Huaqiang closure indicates the measure is being followed.

Many environmental regulations in China fail because of opposition from local governments, which receive tax and other revenues from local factories and are reluctant to shut them down.

The Huaqiang factory will sell its equipment and raw materials, Hai said.

Management was not immediately available for comment Tuesday. Phones at the local commerce bureau were not answered.

The factory, owned by Nanqiang Plastic Industrial Ltd., of Guangzhou in southern China, produced 250,000 tons of plastic bags a year, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

(02-26) 05:20 PST NEW YORK, (AP) —

Media company CBS Corp. reported a 14.6 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday as revenue slipped, but adjusted earnings still beat analysts’ expectations.

CBS earned $286.2 million or 42 cents per share in the three months ending in December, down from $335 million or 43 cents per share in the same period a year ago.

Revenues fell 3 percent to $3.76 billion from $3.88 billion a year ago.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings fell to $366.7 million from $410.6 million. But adjusted per-share earnings rose to 54 cents from 53 cents due share repurchases, beating analysts’ estimates of 52 cents.

CBS’s earnings from television fell 6 percent on a 4 percent decline in revenues, largely due to lower political advertising sales from the high levels in the year-ago period during the 2006 campaign season and also due to TV station sales.

Earnings from radio fell 21 percent on a 10 percent decline in revenues on lower advertising revenues as well as the sales of radio stations in 10 cities.

Outdoor advertising remained a bright spot, with earnings rising 19 percent on a 7 percent gain in revenues, due to gains in Europe and Asia as well as favorable foreign exchange rates. Without the currency gains, revenues from outdoor advertising rose 2 percent.

CBS’s book publishing division Simon & Schuster reported a 24 percent decline in earnings on 4 percent lower revenues compared with a year ago, when the company had big-selling titles including “Lisey’s Story” by Stephen King.

CBS said it expects operating earnings to grow in the range of 3 percent to 5 percent for 2008.

For the full year, CBS earned $1.25 billion or $1.73 per share, down from $1.66 billion or $2.15 per share in 2006. Revenues edged down to $14.07 billion from $14.3 billion.

(01-09) 11:01 PST NEW YORK, (AP) —

A satellite due to launch in three years promises to expand high-speed Internet services to rural Americans who cannot get access through cable or phone companies.

ViaSat Inc. bills its forthcoming ViaSat-1 satellite as the world’s highest-capacity broadband satellite. The company said the new satellite should provide at least 10 times the capacity of those in orbit today, largely by using the spectrum more efficiently.

That means each customer could get faster speeds and more customers could be served in any given area, Chief Executive Mark Dankberg said.

He said satellite broadband providers have been reaching their limits in some of the more populated rural regions, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania Д places where people are more likely to know others with broadband and thus would want it, too.

ViaSat announced a contract this week for Loral Space and Communications Inc. to build the new satellite, to be launched in early 2011 and serve the United States and Canada. A European counterpart, Eutelsat Communications’ KA-SAT, is set to launch in late 2010 using similar technology.

The cable and phone industries now dominate the U.S. broadband market, each having a market share of more than 40 percent, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But there are many rural stretches where Americans have access to neither. In other places, they have only one option, keeping prices high.

ViaSat plans to resell satellite broadband capacity through existing Internet service providers. ViaSat will handle the basic data flow; the ISP will handle sales, billing and added services like e-mail.

Dankberg said the satellite could handle Internet traffic in both directions, so customers could send, or upload, data at speeds comparable to cable and DSL. Some satellite systems send data in one direction only, meaning customers need a regular Д and slow Д dial-up modem for uploading.