LONDON The euro topped $1.10 for the first time since the U.S. elections on Sunday and climbed to a one-year high against the safe-haven yen on relief that Emmanuel Macron had beaten the far-right Marine Le Pen to clinch the French presidency. Early projections showed the market-friendly, pro-EU candidate Macron had been voted in with about 65 percent of the vote, comfortably defeating Le Pen, a nationalist […]
DUBAI Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday criticised the government of President Hassan Rouhani for promoting a “Western-influenced” United Nations education plan which his hardline allies have said contradicts Islamic principles. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks came ahead of May 19 polls, in which the president is seeking re-election. “In this country, the basis is Islam and the Koran. This is not a place where the faulty, corrupt and […]
Independent centrist Emmanuel Macron has won an emphatic victory over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election, according to preliminary estimates. Macron won 65.1% of the second round vote, according to preliminary estimate by Ipsos-Sopra Steria, while Le Pen secured 34.9% Hackers hit the Macron campaign with a ‘massive’ document leak on Friday night Take a look at the FT’s poll tracker […]
By Noah Barkin and Leigh Thomas | BERLIN/PARIS BERLIN/PARIS After a decade of slow growth, rising unemployment and dwindling competitiveness, France elected a president on Sunday who says he has a plan to pull the country out of its economic malaise. Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker who quit the government of Francois Hollande twice out of frustration with the slow pace of reforms, is promising […]
PARIS France’s far-right National Front must be relaunched, Marine Le Pen said on Sunday after conceding defeat to centrist Emmanuel Macron in France’s presidential election . “The National Front … must deeply renew itself in order to rise to the historic opportunity and meet the French people’s expectations,” Le Pen said in a brief address to supporters shortly after initial projections were released. “I will propose to […]
(Image: file photo via CBS News/CBS Interactive) The FBI spent $900,000 on a hack that allowed federal agents into the San Bernardino terrorist’s encrypted iPhone, according to a Democratic senator. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) confirmed the figure this week during an open hearing. FBI director James Comey was testifying in regarding the agency’s work, the events in the run-up to the 2016 elections, and the upcoming reauthorization […]
Live Feed from France 24: After an extraordinary election campaign full of twists and turns, Emmanuel Macron won dramatic victory over Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, taking 65% of the vote, with Le Pen collecting roughly 35%, according to early estimate from four separate French pollsters. Macron, 39, will become the youngest president of France’s Fifth Republic. As BBG notes, the firms sampled real […]
BERLIN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives thumped their Social Democrat rivals in a vote in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, in a boost to her prospects of winning a national election in September. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) fetched 33 percent of the vote in Schleswig-Holstein, up from 30.8 percent in the last election there in 2012, an exit poll for broadcaster ARD showed. The Social Democrats […]
BRUSSELS More than 60 percent of voters have cast or were planning to cast their ballots in French presidential elections for Emmanuel Macron according to surveys carried out on Sunday, Belgian media said. “According to three different institutes, Emmanuel Macron would be first in the presidential election with a result above 60 percent,” Le Soir newspaper said. Belgian public broadcaster RTBF said polls put Macron’s share of […]
While 42.1 per cent believe that the Prime Minister is implicated in the Panama Papers scandal, half of respondents in the latest edition of The Malta Independent’s iSurvey still believe that he should not resign. Respondents were asked two distinct questions: Do you believe the Prime Minister is implicated in the Panama Papers? Should the Prime Minister resign over the allegations of his wife’s […]
PARIS The courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris, where French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was due to speak later on Sunday, was briefly evacuated after a suspect bag was found. Police in the French capital said they made security checks of the area as a precaution and later added that the situation there had returned to normal. Centrist Macron, who is tipped to beat the far […]
PARIS Turnout figures for the second round of the French presidential election showed a 28.23 percent participation rate by midday local time, lower than five years ago, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday. The participation rate figures compared with a comparable figure of 30.7 percent at the same time during the last election in 2012, 34.1 percent in 2007, and 26.2 percent in 2002. (Reporting by Sybille […]
Labour has announced a “personal tax guarantee” that it would not raise income tax or national insurance for the 95 per cent of taxpayers earning less than £80,000, with tax increases for the wealthiest. John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, hopes the policy will confer credibility on the party’s economic policies, while outflanking the Conservatives who have so far refused to recommit to a “triple lock” to hold down […]
By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS After a tumultuous election campaign filled with scandal and surprises, the French public began to vote on Sunday on whether a pro-European Union centrist or an anti-EU, anti-immigration far-rightist will lead them for the next five years. Opinion polls indicate they will pick Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old ex-economy minister who wants to bridge the left-right divide, resisting an anti-establishment tide that […]
PARIS Voting stations opened in France for the second round of the presidential election, with opinion polls indicating Emmanuel Macron was likely to beat Marine Le Pen. Macron wants to deregulate the economy and deepen European Union integration, in contrast to the anti-EU and anti-immigration National Front candidate Le Pen. Forecasts proved to be accurate for the presidential election’s first round last month and financial markets have […]
By Jonathan Cable | LONDON LONDON The fate of the European Union and the euro could hang on the outcome of Sunday’s French presidential election. The expected victory of centrist, pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron would be taken by markets as a sign that political risk in Europe is receding; a surprise win for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen would raise the risk that the euro zone’s number […]
By Andreina Aponte and Andrew Cawthorne | CARACAS CARACAS Dressed in white and chanting “Liberty!”, tens of thousands of women opposed to Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro marched on Saturday, proffering roses to security forces who blocked their way. The women’s marches, which took place in most major cities around the South American oil producer, were the latest in five weeks of sustained protests against Maduro whom […]
May 7, 2017 by: Harriet Agnew and Michael Stothard in Paris The French go to the polls on Sunday to vote for their next president in a run-off election where they will pick between independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and Front National leader Marine Le Pen. They face a choice between two radically different visions for the eurozone’s second-largest economy. Mr Macron, a 39-year old rookie politician whose […]
WASHINGTON U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has recused himself from several court cases that he pursued against the agency when he was Oklahoma attorney general, according to a recusal statement. Pruitt, who had sued the environmental agency more than a dozen times when he was the oil- and gas-producing state’s top legal officer, had pledged during his Senate confirmation that he would step aside from […]
By Joseph Sipalan and Praveen Menon | KUALA LUMPUR KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia’s 1.6 million public servants have long been one of the most reliable vote banks for Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ruling coalition, but as he prepares to seek re-election he faces warnings that soaring living costs risk eroding that support. Prices have risen sharply since Malaysia cut state subsidies and launched a national goods and services […]
Hamas announced on Saturday that it had chosen Ismail Haniyeh, a longtime leader of the militant Islamist group in Gaza, as its new political chief, after signalling a more pragmatic line in a new policy document. Mr Haniyeh served as a deputy to Khaled Mashal, the outgoing political leader of Hamas, and is expected to continue his policies. As head of the group’s political bureau, Mr Mashal […]
The U.S. job market saw a strong rebound in April, driving the unemployment rate to the lowest level in a decade. The economy saw 211,000 jobs added in April, according to new government data released on Friday, May 5. The job market boost dropped the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent, the lowest level since May 2007. The latest stats should calm some fears about the state of the […]
Tens of thousands of Poles took part in an opposition protest in Warsaw on Saturday, accusing the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party of curtailing freedoms in the biggest show of popular discontent so far this year. As many as 90,000 marched chanting “We will defend democracy” and “Here is European Poland!” in the three-hour protest, organised by the opposition Civic Platform party, in conjunction with other […]
America First Policies Group type: 501(c)(4) nonprofit Why it matters: America First Policies grew out of Trump’s political operation. Headed by Brad Parscale, who ran the digital and data portion of Trump’s campaign, and featuring a coterie of former aides, it was meant to serve as a quasi-independent outside group providing support for the president’s initiatives. Parscale has said America First Policies had raised around $25 million. […]
