Greece has wrapped up a deal with creditors on details of reforms that must be enacted before the country can receive the next disbursement from its €86bn bailout programme. The deal, which covers a wide range of fiscal and structural measures, from fresh cuts in pensions to liberalising Sunday trading, was completed during intensive talks over the past week after months of wrangling between Greek finance ministry […]
PARIS Aides of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Tuesday brushed off criticism of her use of phrases lifted straight from a speech by conservative rival Francois Fillon in her May Day address to supporters. Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen’s anti-European Union, National Front (FN) party, said the party “completely owned up” to the fact that the speech resembled one by Fillon a […]
When I visited a dozen news organizations on our Innovation Tour last November, there was a surprising consensus among the biggest players on the next big thing they had in focus: Voice-activated news for devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home. As was true for Virtual Reality/360-degree video a year earlier, the medium is so new that publishers are just beginning to figure out where to start. But […]
Tuesday 06:00 BST Overview Stocks across Asia were mixed on Tuesday as investors grappled with Wall Street’s lowest level of volatility since before the financial crisis amid a holiday-interrupted week. European bourses are expected to open higher, with spreadbetters predicting the UK’s FTSE 100 will climb 26 points to 7,230 and Germany’s Dax to gain 22 points to 12,460. US index futures suggest the S&P 500 will […]
Infosys, the Indian IT services company that stands to be one of the biggest losers from a US visa crackdown, plans to hire 10,000 Americans in the next two years, according to the company’s chief executive. News of the hiring spree, due to be announced on Tuesday, is likely to be seen as a win for the White House as it tries to push companies into creating […]
By Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro announced on Monday the creation of a new popular assembly with the ability to re-write the constitution, which foes decried as a power-grab to stifle weeks of anti-government unrest. “I don’t want a civil war,” Maduro told a May Day rally of supporters in downtown Caracas while elsewhere across the city security forces […]
Wall Street’s so-called fear gauge slid to its lowest level since before the credit crisis on Monday as the broad US stock market inched closer to a new all-time high and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed at a record. The Chicago Board Options Exchange’s implied volatility index, also known as the Vix, slipped as much as 9 per cent on Monday afternoon to touch 9.90, its lowest […]
TOKYO Asian shares advanced on Tuesday, helped by rising optimism on the technology industry and easing concerns over North Korea, while the dollar edged up to one-month high versus the yen. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1 percent, with many of the region’s markets reopening after a long holiday weekend. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.3 percent. On Wall Street, although the Dow Jones […]
May 2, 2017 by: Katrina Manson in New York President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would be “honoured” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances, despite historic levels of mistrust and tension between the world’s superpower and the rogue state over its nuclear ambitions. Mr Trump’s comments contrast with his hardline stance on Pyongyang and Friday’s call from Rex Tillerson, […]
By Michel Rose and Sudip Kar-Gupta | PARIS PARIS Centrist presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen attacked each other’s visions of France and the role it should play in Europe on Monday against a background of May Day rallies and protests. Macron sought for a third successive day to paint National Front (FN) candidate Le Pen as an extremist, while she portrayed […]
LONDON Europeans took to the streets on Monday, celebrating the international workers’ holiday of May Day with an assortment of rallies and demonstrations, which in France turned violent as protesters threw petrol bombs at police. One Paris police officer was seriously burnt and two others injured in confrontations with protesters. In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up demonstrations and arrested hundreds. A […]
By Olivia Oran and Svea Herbst-Bayliss | BEVERLY HILLS BEVERLY HILLS U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday that economic growth of three percent is achievable in the next two years as the Trump administration sets out to dramatically cut taxes. Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, almost a week after he helped unveil plans to cut taxes for many people […]
DOHA The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will drop its long-standing call for Israel’s destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said. Hamas’s move appears aimed at improving relations with the West, Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. Many Western countries classify Hamas as a […]
France’s presidential candidates battled for the working-class vote in a day of sometimes violent protests ahead of next Sunday’s election. As May Day workers’ rights marches were being held across the country, the National Front’s Marine Le Pen attacked her rival Emmanuel Macron as an “enemy of the people” who represented finance and “savage globalisation”. The rancour and confusion of the campaign spilled on to the streets, […]
Mr. Abbas was scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump in Washington on Wednesday as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. He has sought in recent weeks to rein in Hamas, cutting salaries and refusing to pay for electricity, in a bid to undermine the group’s authority. Gazans now have only a few hours of power a day. Continue reading the main story “Whether it’s a coincidence […]
Credit: North Carolina State University A study comparing acceptance rates of contributions from men and women in an open-source software community finds that, overall, women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s – but when a woman’s gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often. “There are a number of questions and concerns related to gender bias in computer programming, but this project was focused […]
Abbas Beydoun is tired of excuses. The 72-year-old Lebanese author and poet urges readers and writers to avoid complacency – and to always look beyond the surface. To explain why, he highlights the central theme of his acclaimed novel, The Autumn of Innocence, which tackles the nature of tyranny. “It’s not good enough to look at violence as just something abnormal or new to us,” he says. […]
By Richard Cowan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Negotiators in the U.S. Congress reached a deal late on Sunday on around $1 trillion in federal funding that would avert a government shutdown later this week, while handing President Donald Trump a down payment on his promised military build-up. The full House of Representatives and Senate must still approve the bipartisan pact, which would be the first major legislation to […]
Besides the upcoming FOMC meeting on May 2-3, and French & Italian politics – the decisive runoff round of the French election takes place this Sunday – this week’s releases are dominated by US payrolls expected to come around 170k. The busy release calendar continues with Norges bank and RBA meetings as well as global manufacturing PMIs. The market’s focus during the week of 5/1 will begin […]
WELLINGTON // They may not have lost themselves in the music or the moment but a judge and nine lawyers in a New Zealand courtroom did listen politely to Eminem’s Lose Yourself as a copyright trial involving the country’s ruling political party began on Monday. The Detroit-based music publishers for Eminem are suing New Zealand’s conservative National Party, alleging the rapper’s acclaimed 2002 song was copied in […]
ROME Matteo Renzi, staging a political comeback less than five months after resigning as Italy’s prime minister, easily regained the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday with an overwhelming victory in a primary election among party supporters. According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country. About 2 million party members voted in […]
By Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to invite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced human rights criticism for its overture to Manila. Trump issued the invitation on Saturday night in what the White House said was a “very friendly” phone conversation with Duterte, […]
World sport power broker Sheikh Ahmad al Fahad al Sabah announced his resignation Sunday from the FIFA council, saying did not want to be a distraction while fighting corruption allegations. Aside from serving on FIFA’s top body, the Kuwaiti is also president of the Olympic Council of Asia and holds other senior roles in sport administration, including with the Asian Football Confederation (FIFA). Sheikh Ahmad has been […]
President Donald Trump was a distracting entertainment from the moment he launched his campaign in June of 2015 — until he wasn’t. His opening speech, in which he called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and told the world he would be the best jobs president “God ever created,” was looked at as the ravings of a man whose outsized ego was too big to be anything but hilarious. News […]
