By Tim Cocks and Pap Saine | BANJUL BANJUL Gambia’s authoritarian leader Yahya Jammeh said on Saturday he was stepping down under pressure from regional armies which entered the West African country this week following his refusal to concede an election defeat to President Adama Barrow. Jammeh was due to go into exile under a deal worked out with African leaders and the announcement on state television […]
By Nandita Bose and Siddharth Cavale | CHICAGO CHICAGO U.S. department store chains, hit by slowing sales for more than two years, have used layoffs, store closings and cutbacks to maintain one aspect of stability: profit margins. An analysis of two important indicators of retail profitability, gross margins and operating margins, shows retailers like Kohl’s Corp (KSS.N), JC Penney Co Inc (JCP.N), Macy’s Inc (M.N) and Target […]
The government has granted an extension to the board of inquiry investigating Nationalist Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami following the publication of an article in Malta Today claiming: ‘Money laundering investigation was not pursued when Fenech Adami’s name cropped up’ The extension was granted following a request by Judge J. D. Camilleri, who requested permission not to submit the report this week but […]
By Catherine Ngai and Liz Hampton | HOUSTON HOUSTON Commodities trader and investor TrailStone Group has purchased Cargill Inc’s gas and power trading group, three sources familiar with the deal said this week. The move, first reported by Sparkspread, comes amid a reshuffling in the power and natural gas industry as private equity firms and hedge funds pour into the space, filling a void left by banks […]
Europe’s most prominent rightwing politicians came together in a rare show of unity in the German city of Koblenz, predicting that the same forces unleashed by US President Donald Trump would sweep them to power throughout western Europe in an insurrectionary “patriotic spring”. Speaking just hours after Mr Trump was inaugurated in Washington, party leaders said Europe was about to experience the same kind of political earthquake […]
By Emily Stephenson and Scott Malone | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Large crowds of women, many wearing bright pink knit hats, poured into downtown Washington by bus, train and car on Saturday for a march in opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump only a day after the Republican took office. The Washington event was expected to be the largest of a series of marches across the world in cities […]
By Stephen Addison and Shadia Nasralla | LONDON/VIENNA LONDON/VIENNA Thousands of women took to the streets of European capitals to join “sister marches” in Asia against newly installed U.S. President Trump ahead of a major rally in Washington expected to draw nearly a quarter of a million people. Waving banners with slogans like “Special relationship, just say no” and “Nasty women unite,” the demonstrators gathered outside the […]
While the year ahead could prove to be a bumpy one for global financial markets amid ongoing political and policy risks, there is reason for optimism over the outlook for stocks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Compared to 2016, a number of structural tailwinds should give investors greater confidence in MENA’s fundamentals. The implementation of major fiscal and capital market reform throughout the […]
By Jessica DiNapoli | NEW YORK NEW YORK A U.S. bankruptcy court judge granted Avaya Inc approval on Friday to tap $425 million of the $725 million loan proposed to carry the telecommunications company through its restructuring, funds the company said were essential to continue operations. Avaya filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday to cut its debt of about $6 billion after efforts to sell […]
In 2015, Malian businessman and former interim prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra told Arabian Business: “When it comes to investment…Africa really is the last frontier. Be it agriculture, energy production, extraction of gold and diamonds, or oil and gas, we have a lot of opportunities and a young workforce that understands how business works.” He was speaking at a time when interest in Africa among Middle East […]
There is no doubt that 2016 was a milestone year for utility-scale solar in the Middle East. The UAE set – and then reset – the benchmark for low-cost solar electricity; Saudi Arabia made its highest level commitment to investing in solar; and Jordan commissioned its largest utility-scale solar power plant and announced plans to tender a new round of projects. In fact, these three countries alone […]
As the nation’s capital prepared to celebrate the inauguration of the nation’s 45th President, Senators confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominees for Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Retired Generals James (“Mad Dog”) Mattis and John F. Kelly were approved by votes of 98-1 and 88-11, respectively. Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican, did not vote for either candidate. […]
President Trump’s brief inaugural speech was a declaration of war against the entirety of the American Ruling Establishment. All of it. As Paul Craig Roberts details, Trump made it abundantly clear that Americans’ enemies are right here at home: globalists, neoliberal economists, neoconservatives and other unilateralists accustomed to imposing the US on the world and involving us in endless and expensive wars, politicians who serve the Ruling […]
BANJUL Gambia’s longtime leader Yahya Jammeh said on Saturday he would step down from power in a statement made in the face of pressure from West African armies that invaded his country to remove him after he refused to concede an election defeat to President Adama Barrow. “I have decided today in good conscience to relinquish the mantle of leadership of this great nation,” he said on […]
Donald Trump’s November victory ignited the steepest rally from election day to inauguration for a first-term president since John F. Kennedy won the White House in 1960. The charts below tell the tale of the vigorous, and in many ways unexpected, reaction to the rise of the billionaire property developer to the pinnacle of American politics. The S&P 500 index, a broad measure of the performance of […]
Washington Post reporter Dalton Bennett thrown to the ground by riot police. pic.twitter.com/4I442QhEqM — Alex Emmons (@AlexanderEmmons) January 20, 2017 Dalton Bennett, a political video reporter at The Washington Post, was thrown to the ground by police today while covering the protests against President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. According to reporter Alex Emmons, who’s covering the protests for The Intercept, Bennett was trying to record anti-Trump […]
Friday 21:00 GMT Overview Financial markets gave a relatively muted response to Donald Trump’s inaugural speech as US president, with US stocks edging higher, Treasuries putting in mixed performances and the dollar easing back against its main rivals. Oil prices rose sharply amid hopes that producers would show compliance to a global deal to cut output. Gold initially struggled for traction but held above the $1,200 an […]
While Turkey’s government later said that Mr. Simsek’s remarks had been misconstrued, it was clear that he had said a settlement without Mr. Assad would be “not, you know, realistic.” Continue reading the main story Both developments came as Russia, Turkey and Iran prepared to convene Syrian peace talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, beginning on Monday. For the first time, it looked likely that the […]
By David Lawder and Scott Malone | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Black-clad activists angry about U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration smashed store and car windows in Washington on Friday and fought with police in riot gear who responded with pepper spray and stun grenades. About 500 people, some wearing masks and kerchiefs over their faces, marched through the city’s downtown, breaking the windows of a Bank of America branch, […]
George Osborne, the former UK chancellor, is to join BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, as an adviser. BlackRock’s chairman and chief executive Larry Fink said the company wanted Mr Osborne’s “unique and valuable perspective on the issues affecting the world”, citing his work helping the UK and the G20 to recover from the financial crisis. “At the centre of our mission is helping people around the […]
The proposed Constitution comes during a period of emergency rule, also approved by Parliament, in the wake of the failed coup attempt in July against Mr. Erdogan. Since then, he has ordered the dismissal of 100,000 state employees and the jailing of more than 40,000 others suspected of supporting the coup. He has also cracked down on the independent news media, jailing about 140 journalists in the […]
By Marja Novak | SEVNICA, Slovenia SEVNICA, Slovenia “First Lady” apple pies in the Kruhek bakery in Melania Trump’s hometown of Sevnica in Slovenia are selling like hot cakes. “We sell more than a hundred a day so the pies are our main product these days,” said Sergeja Gorenjec, a saleswoman at the bakery. “Our workday is longer but we are glad and proud of Melania.” Tourist […]
BERLIN German diplomats helped broker a ceasefire between the Syrian government and rebel forces in a mountainous valley near Damascus, a deal designed to restore water supplies to the capital, the German foreign ministry said on Friday. The agreement, first reported by German news magazine Der Spiegel, is aimed at giving opponents of the Syrian government an opportunity to withdraw from the Wadi Barada valley to the […]
As Donald Trump moves into the White House, it would be hard to dream up a cabinet friendlier to fossil fuels. His nominees include Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil chief tapped for secretary of state; Scott Pruitt, picked to run the environmental watchdog he fought as Oklahoma attorney-general; and Rick Perry, a former Texas governor set to head the energy department. “Folks in the fossil fuel industry […]
