18 May 2017 Colombo: To further boost its sourcing operations and to bring in high quality products for its large chain of hypermarkets, Middle East based retail giant LULU group today inaugurated it world-class sourcing, food processing & export unit in Sri Lanka. Y.A.S. Lanka was inaugurated by Sagala Ratanayaka, Chief of Staff to the PM & Minister for Law & Order and Southern Development in the […]
Here is a selection of five charts that FT Markets believes are worth watching. A fresh chart will be added on a regular basis. 1. Wall Street hit by biggest slide since November US stocks suffered their worst trading day in eight months on Wednesday after political turmoil in Washington shook investors, with some fearing President Donald Trump’s ability to push through his pro-growth policies has been […]
Young Indonesians, frustrated by the country’s lack of progress (or even perceived regression in development) often invoke a refrain along the lines of, “While other countries are focusing on things like getting people to Mars, we are fighting over (religion / blasphemy / corruption etc).” It seems President Joko Widodo feels similarly. Yesterday, while speaking with the editorial heads of several major Indonesian media outlets, Jokowi mentioned that […]
SEOUL U.S. President Donald Trump told South Korea’s presidential envoy that Washington was willing to try to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis through engagement, but under the right conditions, South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday. Trump has said “a major, major conflict” with North Korea is possible and all options are on the table but that he wanted to resolve the crisis diplomatically, possibly through […]
Japan has recorded its longest run of sustained growth in more than a decade as stimulative policy and a healthier global economy lead to a period of robust progress. Growth for the first quarter of 2017 came in at an annualised 2.2 per cent, according to the Cabinet Office, marking five quarters of continuous expansion in gross domestic product. The figure beat the consensus analyst forecast of 1.7 […]
By NILO TABRIZY | May. 17, 2017 | 3:37 On May 19, voters in Iran select their next president. Facebook and Twitter have been blocked there since 2009. But the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi and President Hassan Rouhani, a reformist, are both turning to Instagram to court young voters. NYtimes
ISTANBUL President Tayyip Erdogan told U.S. President Donald Trump during his visit to Washington this week that Turkey would act “without asking anyone” if it faced any sort of attack from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Turkish media reported on Thursday. Trump’s approval, before the visit, of plans to arm the YPG as it advances towards Islamic State’s Raqqa stronghold had overshadowed talks between the NATO allies, […]
By Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito | BRASILIA BRASILIA Brazilian President Michel Temer gave his blessing to an attempt to pay a potential witness to remain silent in the country’s biggest-ever graft probe, according to plea bargain testimony by a powerful businessman, newspaper O Globo reported on Wednesday. Temer’s office on Wednesday acknowledged he had met in March with the businessman, Chairman Joesley Batista of meat giant […]
By Arshad Mohammed and Yeganeh Torbati | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday extended wide sanctions relief for Iran called for under a 2015 international nuclear deal even as he imposed narrow penalties on Iranian and Chinese figures for supporting Iran’s ballistic missile programme. The dual actions, announced by the Departments of State and Treasury, appeared intended to signal a tough stance on Iran even […]
By Shinichi Saoshiro | TOKYO TOKYO Asian stocks fell on Thursday and the dollar was stuck near six-month lows against a basket of currencies as uncertainty mounted over U.S. President Donald Trump’s future following reports that he tried to interfere with a federal investigation. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.4 percent. Japan’s Nikkei shed 1.5 percent, Australian shares lost 1.2 percent and South […]
By Mark Hosenball and Lawrence Hurley | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON Former FBI director and prosecutor Robert Mueller, known for his independence in high profile government investigations, is taking on a new challenge in the midst of a crisis that threatens the presidency of the United States. Mueller, 72, was named on Wednesday by the Justice Department to probe alleged Russian efforts to sway November’s presidential election in favor […]
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the 2017 Google I/O Conference, where he stressed the importance of artificial intelligence Google announced Wednesday it was bringing its digital assistant to Apple iPhones as part of its effort to win the battle with tech rivals on artificial intelligence. At its annual developers conference at an outdoor concert-venue near its main campus in Mountain View, California, […]
China has agreed to increase its import quota for Cambodian rice to 300,000 tonnes by next year, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced yesterday following his return from Beijing where he attended the Belt and Road initiative summit. In a post to his official facebook page, Hun Sen detailed a conversation he had with Chinese president Xi Jinping, who said China would increase its imports of Cambodian rice […]
Call it the Trump fade? The so-called Trump trade captivated Wall Street after the surprise election of Donald Trump last November. After years of stagnant economic growth in the wake of the financial crisis, the prospect of Mr Trump’s pro-business agenda, combined with Republican control of both executive and legislative branches of the US government, breathed new life into the ageing equity rally, sent the dollar to […]
The president’s packed schedule is filled with opportunities for Mr. Trump to slip up, publicly or privately: back-to-back discussions with the leaders of other nations, many of whom are veteran negotiators well versed in issues they care deeply about. Continue reading the main story By contrast, it could also serve as a much-needed change of subject for a president besieged at home with an agenda frozen by […]
BRASILIA/SAO PAULO Brazilian President Michel Temer was recorded discussing payments to silence testimony by a potential witness in the country’s biggest-ever graft probe, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, confirming a report in newspaper O Globo. The paper reported that the chairman of meatpacker JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) had presented a recording of the alleged conversation to prosecutors as part of plea bargain […]
By Anggy Polanco | SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela Venezuela said it was sending 2,000 soldiers on Wednesday to a border state that is a hotspot of anti-government radicalism after looting that killed a 15-year-old in the latest unrest roiling the nation. Most shops and businesses in San Cristobal, capital of Tachira state on the Colombian border, were closed and guarded by soldiers on Wednesday, though […]
This time, the day’s big Trump-Russia-Comey news waited until around 6:00 to break. Former FBI director Robert Mueller has been selected by the US Justice Department to serve as special counsel to oversee the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Rod Rosenstein, the US deputy attorney general, said on Wednesday that he had determined it was in the “public interest” to appoint […]
By Jonathan Barrett | SYDNEY SYDNEY Mining magnate Andrew Forrest has used laws designed to protect indigenous land rights to stop prospectors searching for minerals on his West Australian cattle farms, angering both traditional Aboriginal landowners and mining community members. While tensions between the competing interests of indigenous landholders, pastoral leaseholders and miners on government-controlled land are common, Forrest’s approach represents one of the first known examples […]
By Joel Schectman | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON A bill proposed in Congress on Wednesday would require the U.S. National Security Agency to inform representatives of other government agencies about security holes it finds in software like the one that allowed last week’s “ransomware” attacks. Under former President Barack Obama, the government created a similar inter-agency review, but it was not required by law and was administered by the […]
Google has unveiled a new kind of standalone virtual reality headset that does not need to be wired to a PC or external sensors to offer more realistic graphics and movement tracking, in the hopes of kick-starting what has been sluggish consumer adoption of the technology. Device makers HTC and Lenovo are working with Google and chipmaker Qualcomm to launch the headsets starting later this year, Google […]
Photo Supporters of President Hassan Rouhani, who is running for re-election, at a campaign rally in Isfahan, Iran, on Sunday. Credit Vahid Salemi/Associated Press WASHINGTON — The Trump administration signaled on Wednesday that it would not, for now, jettison the Iran nuclear deal, despite the president’s harsh criticisms of the agreement during the campaign. But while acknowledging that the deal would remain in place, the administration imposed […]
UNITED NATIONS U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Wednesday she will visit Turkey and Jordan from May 19-25 to see how Syrian refugees “are coping, day in and day out,” to see U.N. humanitarian work and highlight the U.S. aid response. It will be the first overseas trip by Haley, a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, and follows a bid by Trump […]
/Foreign Policy/What better way to learn about China’s grand geopolitical ambitions than a bizarre awkward music video? That’s what China’s state-run Xinhua news agency thought when they decided to jazz up a summit in Beijing with what appears to be an attempt at pop music. This week, China hosted a massive international conference to showcase its “One Belt One Road” initiative, Beijing’s $1 trillion infrastructure investment project […]
