By Swati Pandey and Charlotte Greenfield | WELLINGTON WELLINGTON New Zealand Finance Minister Bill English said on Tuesday he planned to stand for prime minister after John Key’s surprise resignation a day earlier. English, a former Treasury Department analyst who is also deputy leader of the ruling centre-right National Party, is viewed by both lawmakers and political analysts as the front-runner for the top job. “I can […]
Italy’s president has asked Matteo Renzi to stay on as Italy’s prime minister until the country’s budget law is passed in parliament, extending his stay at the helm of the Italian government for possibly a week. At a meeting in the presidential palace in Rome, Mr Renzi expressed his intention to resign after suffering a bruising defeat in a constitutional reform referendum held on Sunday. But Sergio […]
By Michelle Nichols | UNITED NATIONS UNITED NATIONS Russia and China on Monday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have demanded a seven-day truce in Syria’s Aleppo, with Russia arguing it would allow rebels to regroup and that time was needed for talks between Washington and Moscow. It was the sixth time Russia has vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria since the conflict started […]
December 5, 2016 by: Anjli Raval, Oil and Gas Correspondent Oil rose to its highest level since mid-2015, topping $55 a barrel, as traders bet on supplies tightening after Opec struck a deal last week to cut production for the first time in eight years. The 13-member cartel has now invited producers from outside the cartel to Vienna this week, as it looks to secure their backing […]
By Dominic Evans and Ahmed Rasheed | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD Western-backed Iraqi forces have begun shelling parts of west Mosul, residents said, in preparation for a new front against Islamic State seven weeks into a difficult campaign to drive the militants from the city. Federal police forces, stationed a few miles (km) south of Mosul, on the west bank of the Tigris river that divides the city, have […]
Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Fake news is not the sole province of slimeball digital practitioners in faraway lands enabled by the righteous souls at Facebook and Google. There’s also — as has ever been so — the government. “Police investigating a notorious gang in […]
In the United States, too, I found resistance to the idea that Brexit was a harbinger of a Trump victory. I was assured over and over by liberal friends that Trump would never be president. American voters were too sensible to fall for his hateful demagogy. Trump, I was told, was a product of peculiarly American strains of populism that flare up periodically, like the anti-immigrant nativism […]
This is the first of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds The supposed death of the stock picker has become one of the dominant narratives of post-crisis finance. As trillions of dollars have rushed into low maintenance, index-based products facilitated by exchange traded funds, it has become common place to hear traditional fund managers and analysts complain that this wall of cash is […]
SINGAPORE: As Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key has helped transform the country into a “resilient and vibrant economy”, said Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, expressing surprise at Mr Key’s resignation announcement on Monday morning (Dec 5). “As PM, Mr Key and his team dealt with some major challenges, including the global financial crisis and the 2011 Christchurch earthquake,” PM Lee wrote in a Facebook […]
By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL Besides South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the biggest casualty of the country’s mushrooming political corruption scandal may be the presidential aspirations of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Although he has not declared his candidacy, Ban was until a month ago the front-runner in opinion polls to win the election scheduled for Dec. 20, 2017, a race he was […]
By Idrees Ali | ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT ABOARD A US MILITARY AIRCRAFT While the fight to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from Islamic State is going to be difficult, it is “possible” it could be complete before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. Some 100,000 Iraqi government troops, Kurdish security forces and mainly Shi’ite militiamen are participating […]
By Crispian Balmer and Gavin Jones | ROME ROME Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign after suffering a crushing defeat on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform, tipping the euro zone’s third-largest economy into political turmoil. His decision to quit after just two and a half years in office deals a blow to the European Union, already reeling from multiple crises and struggling […]
The cashless society is catching up to all of us. As SHTFPlan.com’s Mac Slavo notes, Most of Europe has shifted that way, and now India is forcing the issue. In the United States, people are being acclimated to it, and may soon find that no other option is practical in the highly-digitized online world. Once that takes hold, the banksters, bureaucrats and hackers will have total […]
By Nichola Saminather and Wayne Cole | SINGAPORE/SYDNEY SINGAPORE/SYDNEY The euro was under the gun on Monday, skidding to a 20-month low after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign following a stinging defeat on constitutional reform that could destabilise the country’s shaky banking system. The single currency, which slumped to as low as $1.0505 EUR= in early Asian trade after opening at around $1.0685, […]
Two days after Donald Trump created a diplomatic dispute with China over Taiwan, the president-elect took to Twitter on Sunday evening to criticise Beijing and defend his decision to speak with the Taiwanese president. China issued a protest on Saturday after Mr Trump spoke on the phone with Tsai Ing-wen, the first such contact with a Taiwanese leader since the US severed diplomatic ties in 1979. Although […]
BEIRUT As Syrian government forces advanced into Aleppo’s rebel-held al-Sakhour district, Hasan al-Ali said he faced the choice of staying put and being caught by the army, or fleeing into a shrinking rebel enclave under relentless bombardment. A father of three children, he opted for the latter, though food, fuel, water and medicine are running critically low in rebel-held areas, such is his fear of the Syrian […]
By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi | BEIRUT/AMMAN BEIRUT/AMMAN As the Syrian government and its allies prepared to ramp up their attack on Aleppo in November, one of the rebel groups defending the opposition-held part of the city took up arms against another, seizing its stores of ammunition, fuel and food. The incident near an Aleppo frontline underlined the rebel rivalries that only worsened in the face […]
The family of a woman killed in the 2015 Paris attacks by ISIS claims in a lawsuit that Twitter, Facebook, and Google profit from targeted advertising linked to terrorist propaganda promoting violence. As Bloomberg reports, the case is one of several complaints in U.S. courts alleging that the social media giants have played crucial roles in the growth of terrorist organizations in recent years. The biggest hurdle […]
By Saif Hameed and Ulf Laessing | BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq BAGHDAD/BARTELLA, Iraq Islamic State fighters retreating in the face of a seven-week Iraqi military assault on their Mosul stronghold have hit back in the last two days, exploiting cloudy skies which hampered U.S.-led air support and highlighting the fragile army gains. In a series of counter-attacks since Friday night, the jihadist fighters struck elite Iraqi troops spearheading the […]
ATHENS Political uncertainty in Europe has created fresh momentum for a “comprehensive and permanent” solution to the Greek debt crisis before the year ends, a government spokesman said on Sunday. Euro zone finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss short-term debt relief for Greece, and Germany’s Wolfgang Schaeuble said it must implement reforms instead of hoping for further debt forgiveness. Greece remained optimistic for […]
Italians and Austrians headed to the polls in closely watched votes on Sunday that will gauge the strength of Europe’s populist and extreme right political parties. Italy’s constitutional referendum on Sunday will determine the political future of prime minister Matteo Renzi and test anti-establishment parties in the eurozone’s third-largest economy. The plebiscite on Mr Renzi’s flagship overhaul — which would shrink the powers of the Italian senate […]
BEIRUT Syrian rebel groups have told the United States they will not leave Aleppo after Moscow called for talks with Washington over a full withdrawal of rebel fighters from the city’s besieged eastern districts, a rebel official said on Sunday. Speaking to Reuters from Turkey, senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji said the message was delivered to U.S. officials in contacts on Saturday following the statement from Russia, […]
KUALA LUMPUR Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called for foreign intervention to stop the “genocide” of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar on Sunday, as he joined thousands of Rohingya protesters in Kuala Lumpur. Muslim-Majority Malaysia has been increasingly critical of Myanmar’s handling of violence and allegations of state abuses in northern Rakhine state, which has driven hundreds of ethnic Rohingya to flee across the borders to Bangladesh. It […]
By Gavin Jones | ROME ROME Italians vote on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform which will decide the political future of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has promised to resign if he loses. Financial markets and Europe’s politicians fear victory for the opposition ‘No’ camp could trigger political instability and renewed turmoil for Italy’s battered banks, pushing the euro zone towards a fresh crisis. Polls […]
