China has ceded its status as America’s largest creditor nation to Japan after spending a large portion of its foreign exchange reserves to defend the renminbi. Beijing’s ownership of US Treasuries fell by $41.3bn to $1.12tn in October, according to data from the US Treasury released on Thursday — the sixth straight month of decline. Japan’s holdings fell by $4.5bn to $1.13tn for the same period. Thomas […]
The Supreme Court’s dealing with the Panama Papers has run up against procedural issues. First comes the retirement at the end of the month of the head of the bench, none other than the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali. At the last hearing of the case, it was announced that the case would be reheard, not treated as partly heard. Then there is […]
India is set to get more Trump-branded projects as local developers seek to capitalize on the brand. A story from The Wall Street Journal Friday took a look at the many projects around the world connected to the U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, including those in India. Unimark Group, a developer based in Kolkata, has tied up to rebrand a previously planned residential apartment building in the eastern […]
Friday 08:00 GMT Overview Equity markets are steady, holding near recent highs, as the dollar’s bounce to a 14-year peak on expectations of a more hawkish Federal Reserve pauses for breath. Bond markets are calmer too after the recent battering that pushed yields to their richest in many months, while gold edges up. Hot topic The dollar and surging bond yields has been one of the biggest […]
Investors have piled into Russian equity and bond funds over the past week as oil prices have rallied and President-elect Donald Trump named an oil executive with close ties to Vladimir Putin as US secretary of state. Russian stock funds recorded inflows of $451m in the week to December 14, the biggest weekly haul since the first quarter of 2011, according to EPFR. Mutual funds and exchange […]
Submitted by Eric Zuesse via Strategic-Culture.org, Was the Cold War against communism, or against Russia? Russia was our ally in World War II, and we’d have a Nazi world today if 26 million Russians hadn’t died from Hitler’s bombs and attacks while Russia fought on with courage amidst desperation, finally to crush his regime. But Russia was communist, so the Cold War developed after that alliance (the Allies in […]
By Joseph Menn The U.S. agency charged with ensuring that voting machines meet security standards was itself penetrated by a hacker after the November elections, according to a security firm working with law enforcement on the matter. The security firm, Recorded Future, was monitoring underground electronic markets where hackers buy and sell wares and discovered someone offering log-on credentials for access to computers at the U.S. Election […]
If Donald Trump has made bank stocks great again, Janet Yellen has just made them even greater. US financial stocks were on a tear on Thursday, extending their strong post-election market gains after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signalled that at least three more rises are on the cards for next year. The prospect that the US central bank might have to raise […]
While a liberal group responsible for fomenting the Electoral College rebellion claims to have at least 20 of the 37 GOP defectors needed to pull an upset and send the election to the House, The Hill reports that, among Republicans on the ground, though, there is no chatter or speculation surrounding that possibility. The liberal opposition has generated a cottage industry of online speculation that an Electoral […]
US intelligence officials have acknowledged that Russia worked to influence the outcome of the US election, and the New York Times has an excellent rundown of what occurred. It’s a fascinating look at what might be a blueprint for future electoral meddling. But perhaps the most startling fact is that something as large, complex, and arcane as an American election was attacked without touching a single voting […]
15 December 2016 – Beijing, People’s Republic of China China Oceanwide (together with its subsidiary, “Oceanwide Resort Paradise HI LLC”) entered into a management agreement today with subsidiaries of Kerzner International Holdings Limited (“Kerzner”), a leading international developer and operator of destination resorts and ultra-luxury hotels, for a new, Atlantis resort in Ko Olina, a 642 acre development on the white sand beaches of the island of […]
The US dollar marched higher on Thursday, reaching its strongest level against the euro for more than a decade, after the US Federal Reserve signalled a more aggressive outlook for interest rate policy. Europe’s single currency was among the hardest hit, falling through the $1.04 level to trade at its lowest level since early 2003. Driving the dollar’s strength is a growing divergence between benchmark interest rates […]
“If they’ve managed to sleep through the night, bonds traders in the US will have quite a shock when they check their screens in the morning,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz, tweeted early on Thursday. Wall Street bond traders and investors will have turned in on Wednesday night already jolted by the Federal Reserve, which under Janet Yellen’s leadership has become synonymous with caution on […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday raised more questions about Russia’s reported role in cyber attacks on U.S. political parties and individuals as well as the timing of the White House’s response under President Barack Obama. “If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Trump wrote in a […]
Everyone is gaga over the idea of frictionless grocery shopping: tap your phone on a turnstile device upon entry, retrieve food from the shelves, and walk out; your bill is charged to the credit card connected to your device. No waiting in line; no chit chat as your groceries are rung up. In other words, say hello to Amazon Go, which will be tested in […]
By Ercan Gurses and Orhan Coskun | ANKARA ANKARA Turkey may hold a referendum as early as March on constitutional changes to expand the president’s powers, a senior ruling party lawmaker said, a move that would help Tayyip Erdogan acquire the executive presidency he has long sought. The ruling AK Party over the weekend submitted to parliament a 21-article package of constitutional reform proposals, aiming to hold […]
By Natalie Schachar | MEXICO CITY MEXICO CITY Some Mexican banks are lowering credit card spending limits and raising consumer lending standards in the face of an economic slowdown, rising interest rates and the U.S. election victory of Donald Trump. After a period of robust overall credit growth, Mexican banks are cutting credit card exposure to counter a potential rise in consumer defaults and the risks of […]
By Howard Schneider and Lindsay Dunsmuir | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signaled a faster pace of increases in 2017 as central bankers adapted to the incoming Trump administration’s promises of tax cuts, spending and deregulation. The increase in the federal funds rate to a range of between 0.50 percent and 0.75 percent was widely expected. But the prospect of […]
Steve Garey, who retired from the Anacortes refinery in 2015 after almost 25 years and served as president of the United Steelworkers local, said that while some positive changes were made after the 2010 accident, upper management at Tesoro remains “contemptuous” of its work force and is “hiding behind incredibly permissive process safety regulations.” Those regulations grew out of a string of catastrophic events in the 1980s, […]
The Washington Post is a profitable and growing enterprise, the newspaper’s publisher announced in a memo to staffers Tuesday evening. In the seventh paragraph of a rally-the-troops announcement, Post Publisher Fred Ryan made a winking nod to burying the news: Not to bury the lede, but thanks to the incredible work of the entire team, The Washington Post will finish this year as a profitable and growing […]
Long-term borrowing costs for lower-quality US investment-grade companies are nearing 5 per cent — the highest level in nine months — as investors anticipate rising inflation and higher growth, reversing from the six-decade low touched earlier this year. The average yield on the closely followed Moody’s Baa index has climbed to 4.9 per cent, the highest since March when the US credit market slowly recovered from a […]
By Julia Love and Ginger Gibson | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON Alphabet’s Google is racing to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy arm, trying to get a foothold in President-elect Donald Trump’s Washington after enjoying a uniquely close relationship with the administration of President Barack Obama. In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and […]
Dec 14, 2016 10:30 am IST As for the rest of the world, 2016 has been an eventful year for India. From the cash crunch to pollution to terrorist attacks to the Rio Olympics, there has been plenty for Indians to talk about online. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have ranked the most talked about events, videos, people and hashtags of 2016. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Twitter said Indian Prime […]
December 14, 2016 by: Robin Harding in Tokyo Optimism at Japanese companies is on the rise for the first time in 18 months after Donald Trump’s election as US president breathed new life into the country’s drive to escape deflation. The Bank of Japan’s closely watched tankan index for large manufacturers rose from +6 to +10 in December, the first increase since the second quarter of 2015, […]
