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BEIRUT A spokesman for the Syrian Islamist militia Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly called the Nusra Front, criticised a nationwide Turkish- and Russian-backed ceasefire in Syria on Friday, saying the political solution under this agreement would “reproduce the criminal regime”. The group, which changed its name and announced in July that it was severing ties with al Qaeda, condemned the deal for not mentioning President Bashar al-Assad’s fate. […]

A year ago the coffers at Argentina’s central bank were empty as the country teetered on the brink of a currency crisis. Now banks are scrambling to fly dollars back to the US as their vaults fill to bursting with piles of cash.  That would sound like good news for Alfonso Prat-Gay, who as finance minister this week boasted that his tax amnesty had already repatriated $90bn hidden […]

Hindsight Capital beats the market, and all competition, every year. But how would it do over a decade? For the uninitiated, Hindsight Capital is an imaginary hedge fund that is blessed with perfect foresight, which features at this time of year in the Long View column. As real fund managers deploying real money have to hedge their bets, it always does far better than any of them […]

ANKARA Turkey would welcome the United States at Syrian peace talks planned in Astana, Kazakhstan, but the Kurdish YPG militia should not be involved, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday. “From the start, we have told Russia that a terrorist organisation like the YPG should not be in Astana,” Cavusoglu told reporters in the southern city of Alanya, in comments broadcast live on television. “If […]

By Selam Gebrekidan | TOREKOV, Sweden TOREKOV, Sweden For more than a year, Girmay Mehari dreaded his 18th birthday next February. The teenager escaped from an Eritrean jail two years ago after he was sentenced to an indefinite term for evading national service or plotting to escape the country. The police never spelled out the charges. With money his brothers raised in New York and Israel, Girmay […]

Financial markets in 2016 endured an escalation of negative interest rates, the collapse and subsequent rebound in commodity prices and fluctuating stock market valuations. The test for investors began in week one, as fears of a China slowdown roiled stock indices weeks after the Federal Reserve began to normalise policy. Over the ensuing months, the Brexit vote and US election would prove significant mile markers, shift thinking […]

The number of new mutual funds launched in the US fell sharply in 2016, reflecting the crisis of confidence in active management and the shift by investors into exchange traded funds. The number of mutual funds shutting down has also jumped to levels not seen since the financial crisis, according to the latest figures from the research group Morningstar. The result is that the total number of […]

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Since the economic crisis of 2008, Spain has seen a steady trend of increasingly fewer births. In the first half of 2016, 12,998 more people died than were born in Spain and the number of newborns fell by 4.6%. Put simply, as El Pais reports, Spain’s population is shrinking at a rate of 72 people per day, essentially due to a historically low birthrate, according to a […]

BEIRUT A ceasefire deal between Syrian government forces and rebels that took effect at midnight held early on Friday, after initial isolated clashes and gunfire, a monitoring group and a rebel official said. The truce was violated almost immediately after it came into effect as the warring sides clashed in the northwest of the country. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hours later that the […]

In August, US group ValueAct announced a $1.1bn stake in Morgan Stanley. Yet the notorious boardroom activist had no plans to shake up management, no beef with strategy at the investment bank. The stock, it said, was simply cheap. Mere months later an investment that had seemed brave at the time is worth $1.8bn. ValueAct’s gain is just one of the more striking examples of an extreme […]

BEIRUT Clashes between rebels and Syrian government forces took place less than two hours after a ceasefire took effect on Friday, a monitoring group and a rebel official said, in the first violations of a deal backed by Russia and Turkey. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said rebels had violated the truce deal and taken over a position in Hama province. Mohammed Rasheed, a […]

By John Davison | BEIRUT BEIRUT A nationwide ceasefire in Syria, brokered by Russia and Turkey which back opposing sides in the conflict, got off to a shaky start after midnight on Friday (2200 GMT on Thursday) in the latest attempt to end nearly six years of bloodshed. Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, announced the ceasefire on Thursday after forging […]

The two-state solution would establish an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel — two states for two peoples. In theory, this would win Israel security and allow it to retain a Jewish demographic majority (letting the country remain Jewish and democratic) while granting the Palestinians a state. Continue reading the main story Most governments and world bodies have set achievement of the two-state solution as official policy, including […]

Wall Street’s most important equity barometer is on track for its biggest annual recovery since the beginning of the bull market, underscoring the sharp turn in investor sentiment following the worst start to a year on record. The S&P 500 index is poised for an 11 per cent gain in 2016, shaking off a brutal start that at its lowest point in February left it down 10.5 […]

BEIRUT The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said warring sides appeared to cease firing across Syria after a truce deal came into effect at midnight on Friday (2200 GMT Thursday). The British-based Observatory said there had been some shellfire around Aleppo and in an area close to the capital Damascus shortly before the ceasefire, brokered by Russia and Turkey, began. (Reporting by John Davison; Editing […]

In the battle against the Islamic State for Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, there is no continuous front line, but a patchwork of battlegrounds in the city and all around its edge. When the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, retreats from a position, it tries to leave as much damage behind as possible, including burning oil field wells to provide concealment ahead of a government […]

BEIRUT A spokesman for a major Syrian rebel group said on Thursday it had reservations about an agreement for a nationwide ceasefire and resumption of negotiations and was not among the groups that had signed it. “Ahrar al-Sham has a number of reservations over the proposed agreement and the negotiations linked to it, and therefore has not signed it. We will make clear our reservations in due […]

MOSCOW Syrian President Bashar al Assad told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he was ready to observe a ceasefire agreement in Syria, the Kremlin said on Thursday. Putin and Assad spoke on the phone and agreed that the opening of Syria peace talks in Kazakhstan would be “an important step towards the ultimate resolution of the crisis,” the Kremlin said in a statement. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; […]

MOSCOW Russia’s embassy in Damascus was hit by a mortar shell on Thursday afternoon, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. The blast caused no casualties, Zakharova said in a statement on the ministry’s website. The embassy had been hit by shells twice on Wednesday. The ministry said the attacks were a provocation aimed at derailing a peace settlement. [nNRA33wvkr] (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Kevin […]

The Syrian government and rebels have agreed a ceasefire brokered and guaranteed by Russia and Turkey, marking a potential breakthrough in efforts to end a near six-year conflict that has claimed more than 400,000 lives. Russian President Vladimir Putin said a truce would come into effect at midnight on Thursday, adding that Syria’s warring parties had signed documents detailing how it would be monitored and declaring their […]

ANKARA The countrywide ceasefire in Syria guaranteed by Russia and Turkey does not include Islamic State or the Kurdish YPG militia, a spokesman for Syrian rebels said on Thursday. Speaking at a news conference in Ankara following the announcement of the deal, Osama Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army rebel alliance, also said the Syrian Kurdish PYD political party would not be part of […]

M&A: back with a bang Deal activity was vigorous with much of it concentrated just below the level of the industry’s biggest companies. Nasdaq bought International Securities Exchange for $1.1bn, while CBOE Holdings announced a $3.2bn deal for Bats Global Markets in September. Of most significance, the pending €24bn tie-up between London’s LSE Group and Deutsche Börse, which will create Europe’s largest exchange. As the chart above […]

By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin | NEAR MOSUL, Iraq NEAR MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi security forces on Thursday began the second phase of their offensive against Islamic State militants in Mosul, pushing from three directions into eastern districts where the battle has been deadlocked for nearly a month. Since the offensive to capture Mosul began 10 weeks ago, counter-terrorism forces have retaken a quarter of the city, […]

(Image: file photo) Legacy vendors and the cloud The cloud has devastated revenue, growth and margins of legacy vendors. Any CFO can look online to see what similar capacity, performance, and higher availability costs compared to the huge capital costs of traditional RAID arrays. 2016 saw the world’s largest independent storage company — EMC — bought by Dell, after shopping itself to all the big system vendors. […]

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