A round up of some of 2016’s most significant corporate events and news stories. Smartphone sales © EPA A bright start to the year for Samsung Electronicswent up in smoke, after it took the unprecedented decision to axe its Galaxy Note 7 line, following a spate of safety issues that saw the smartphone banned from aircraft, writes Nic Fildes. The 2016 Galaxy Note iteration won substantial praise […]
UNITED NATIONS: In a striking rupture with past practice, the United States allowed the UN Security Council on Friday to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law. In doing so, the outgoing Obama administration brushed aside Donald Trump’s demands that the US exercise its veto and provided a climax to years of icy relations with Israel’s leadership.The […]
Porsche has won a key victory in its efforts to dismiss claims against the company for billions of euros of damages relating to its failed takeover of Volkswagen in 2008. Porsche Automobil Holding SE said on Friday that Germany’s federal court of justice, the country’s highest civil court, had dismissed a claim for €1.2bn brought by 19 hedge funds. When Porsche revealed in 2008 that it owned […]
“The boundaries of uncertainty have increased [for fixed-income markets],” says Dan Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, the bond specialist that invests more than $1.5tn. “Rates certainly can go higher.” What is clear for bond investors is that they face a true test of their convictions in 2017 after an end to 2016 that challenged the consensus of low inflation and rates that, at one point, drove […]
On April 7, 14 large blue letters quietly disappeared from the outer walls of an office building in an exclusive neighborhood in northern San Salvador. One by one, the letters came down from the blue and beige stucco walls, leaving behind faint traces of the name of the law firm that had been working there just days before: M-O-S-S-A-C-K-F-O-N-S-E-C-A. Employees of the El Salvador branch of Mossack […]
A hundred years ago, an arms race between the dominant global superpower the (British Empire) and a rising power (Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany) culminated in the mass slaughter of World War One. The deep mistrust between the United States and the People’s Republic of China has all the potential to spawn a traumatic chapter in international relations. Despite its “pivot” to Asia, the Obama White House was cautious […]
The renminbi’s seemingly endless grind lower against the US dollar has been one of the financial stories of 2016, triggering a wave of capital outflows from China that Goldman Sachs estimates may have totalled $1.1tn since August 2015. The once closely controlled Chinese currency has tumbled 6.5 per cent to an eight-year low of Rmb6.945 against the greenback this year, taking its slide since August 2015 to […]
Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org, Understanding the objectives and logic that accompany the expansion of nations or empires is always of paramount importance in helping one draw lessons for the future In this series of four articles I intend to lay a very detailed but easily understandable foundation for describing the mechanisms that drive great powers. To succeed, one must analyze the geopolitical theories that over […]
By Jeffrey Dastin | ALLENTOWN, Pa. ALLENTOWN, Pa. A cargo plane emblazoned with “Prime Air” descended from an empty sky at Lehigh Valley International Airport on Tuesday, ninety minutes from the bustle of New York City, loaded with crates of goods during the peak holiday shopping season. It’s one of 40 jets leased by Amazon.com Inc for a new cargo service to meet delivery demand from the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia unveiled a $237 billion budget for 2017, an 8 percent increase from 2016, with projections of a record 33 percent decrease in the Kingdom’s national deficit. “Our economy is firm and it has sufficient strength to cope with the current economic and financial challenges,” said King Salman bin Abdulaziz.. “We have sought through this budget and its programs to improve the […]
By Lisa Barrington and Angus McDowall | BEIRUT BEIRUT Syrian rebels shelled Aleppo and air strikes resumed around the city on Friday as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies said the insurgents’ withdrawal from the city could pave the way towards a political solution for the country. A day after the last rebels left their remaining pocket of territory in the city, the Syrian Observatory for […]
If any global sound is on the verge of blowing up in 2017, it’s the pan-African mélange known as afrobeats. Or, depending on who you ask, afropop, afrofusion or afropolitan – but not to be confused with political Fela Kuti-style afrobeat (singular), nor with any of the traditional music that has tended to find its way into the “world music” section of western music shops. Rather, this […]
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding that Israel stop building settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories, after the US abstained in spite of ferocious criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The resolution was passed with 14 votes from the 15-member security council, hours after a senior Israeli official accused US President Barack Obama of working “behind Israel’s back” to cook up the resolution, in […]
Wall Street treaded water in light pre-holiday trading on Friday, with the three major indexes on track to post weekly gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which came within spitting distance of the historic 20,000 mark earlier this week, looked set to record its seventh straight weekly gains. “There’s really nothing to move the market one way or another,” said Mohannad Aama, managing director at Beam Capital […]
Photo Passengers leaving the hijacked Afriqiyah Airways plane at Malta International Airport on Friday. Credit Matthew Mirabelli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images CAIRO — All 109 passengers and crew members on board a hijacked Libyan airliner en route to the capital, Tripoli, were released on Friday, hours after two men claiming to be carrying explosives forced the plane to divert to Malta, Malta’s prime minister said. The hijackers, […]
Christmas is almost here (and so is Hanukkah), and so it is time for the Long View to revisit the offices of Hindsight Capital LLC once more. Hindsight Capital, for the uninitiated, is the hedge fund that beats all others year in and year out because it is endowed with 20/20 hindsight; it can see the future. The returns to clairvoyance are potentially infinite, so it has […]
By Wa Lone and Simon Lewis | YANGON YANGON Before entering the courthouse in the capital of eastern Myanmar’s Shan State, Maw Maw Oo said it was ominous that several blue police vans were already waiting in the parking lot. “But I don’t want to guess what the court’s decision will be,” she told a Reuters reporter by phone. Hours later she was jailed for a month […]
MOSCOW President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had all agreed that the Kazakh capital of Astana should be the venue for new Syrian peace talks. Russia, Iran and Turkey held talks in Moscow on Tuesday after which they said they were ready to help broker a Syrian peace deal. Putin has proposed holding the negotiations in Kazakhstan, a […]
MOSCOW Russia’s economic contraction is slowing, capital flight is fading and real wages are starting to recover, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday. Speaking at an annual end-of-year news conference, Putin said the Russian economy was on track to contract by 0.5-0.6 percent this year, while inflation for the whole of 2016 was likely to reach 5.5 percent. Putin said the budget deficit was seen at 3.7 […]
For 15 years, Chandran Nair led a top Asian environmental consultancy that was active in China. In 2006, he founded the Global Institute for Tomorrow, a Hong Kong think tank focused on a shift of global power from the West to Asia, at a time when China’s rise is changing the geopolitical balance. Mr. Nair, who was born in Malaysia to a large South Indian family, is the […]
Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have agreed to pay out billions to resolve a probe into the alleged mis-selling of mortgage-backed securities at the height of the US housing bubble, striking deals before the Trump administration takes power. The deals came as federal prosecutors announced they were suing Barclays and two of its executives over the issue of allegedly fraudulent residential mortgage-backed securities. The suit followed the breakdown of talks […]
Net redemptions from emerging market equity funds reached a five-week high in the latest week amid pressure from the rising dollar and uncertainty about trade policy in the US, especially with China. Investors withdrew $3.7bn from emerging market equity funds in the week to Wednesday, according to EPFR Global, with Asia ex-Japan equity funds seeing net redemptions of $2.36bn, the largest since September of 2015. China equity […]
Nearly a decade ago, Warren Buffett bet Protege Partners, a fund of hedge funds, that over the course of 10 years the S&P would outperform Protege’s returns net of all fees, costs and expenses. To make it real, the loser agreed to pay $1 million to the charity of the winner’s choice. At this past year’s annual meeting, Warren Buffett provided an update on the now […]
The US State Department has approved a possible foreign military sale to the Government of Kuwait of 218 tanks and related equipment, support, and training. The estimated cost of the sale is $1.7 billion, it said in a statement. It said the Government of Kuwait has requested the possible sale in support of its recapitalization of 218 M1A2 tanks, to include 240 .50 Cal M2A1 machine guns; […]
