By Andrew Callus | PARIS PARIS France’s centre-right rallied behind free market reformist Francois Fillon as its candidate for president on Monday after a snap opinion poll showed him clear favourite to beat far-right leader Marine Le Pen in an election showdown next year. Fillon, a former prime minister who vowed to change France’s “software” with an assault on public sector spending, moved one step closer to […]
Bail in risk – €4 Trillion Italian banking system at risk as referendum looms Sunday according to Financial Times Concerns of multiple bank failures – Eight banks at risk of failure and bail ins Monte dei Paschi di Siena, third largest by assets and mid-sized banks Popolare di Vicenza, Veneto Banca and Carige and four smaller banks Italy’s banks have €360 billion of problem loans Contagion poses risks to Unicredit, […]
Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced comments by Qatar that it will continue to back rebels against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as merely an attempt “to raise the morale of the terrorist groups” in the face of army advances. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told Reuters in an interview on Sunday that Doha would continue to arm Syrian rebel groups even if US President-elect […]
ISTANBUL Turkey’s emergency rule, instituted in the days immediately following the July 15 failed coup, will continue as long as necessary, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told a news conference on Monday. President Tayyip Erdogan has previously said emergency rule – initially introduced for three months and subsequently extended for another three – could continue for beyond a year. Erdogan declared a state of emergency days after […]
MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to attend the funeral of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. Peskov said Putin had a busy schedule preparing for a major speech. Vyacheslav Volodin, a close Putin ally and the speaker of the Russian State Duma or lower house of parliament, would head the Russian delegation to the funeral, said Peskov. […]
By Ju-min Park | SEOUL SEOUL South Korean President Park Geun-hye cannot be questioned by Tuesday as prosecutors have requested, her lawyer said, as she resists growing calls to resign over an influence scandal that has engulfed her administration. Park is under intense pressure to step down over the crisis involving a close friend accused of meddling in state affairs, with the main opposition party seeking to […]
By Nelson Acosta and Ana Isabel Martinez | HAVANA HAVANA Cubans will begin massing on Havana’s Revolution Square from Monday for a week-long commemoration of Fidel Castro, the communist guerrilla leader who led a revolution in 1959 and ruled the Caribbean island for half a century. Castro died on Friday at the age of 90, a decade after stepping down due to poor health and ceding power […]
Law Blog rounds up the morning’s legal news: Anthem-Cigna trial: The trial starts Monday in the Justice Department’s challenge to health insurer Anthem’s $48 billion acquisition of reluctant partner Cigna, a case that could produce unusual courtroom drama. [WSJ, NYT] Abortion rights: Liberal and conservative groups are girding for battle over abortion rights under President-elect […] (via WSJ)
Industry eyes opportunity to reinvest at higher yields and leave low rate era behind ©Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty Donald Trump may be just what the global insurance industry needs. Shares in several of the sector’s largest companies have outperformed the market strongly since the US election, on hopes that a prolonged squeeze on their returns is finally drawing to a close. Years of ultra-low rates have eaten away at […]
By Lisa Barrington | BEIRUT BEIRUT Several thousand residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo fled shifting frontlines, residents and a monitor said on Sunday, after a rapid advance by the Syrian army and allied forces that rebels fear could split their most important urban stronghold in two. The army and its allies took control on Saturday of the large Hanano housing district, on the northeast frontline of the […]
TOKYO Oil prices tumbled on Monday on fears that producer countries may fail to agree an output cut, pressuring U.S. stocks and the dollar as traders reversed their “Trumpflation” trade as weak oil prices would reduce pressure on U.S. interest rates to rise. That gave some relief to Asian shares, which had underperformed on worries about capital flight to higher-yielding U.S markets in the weeks since Donald […]
By Roberta Rampton and Dustin Volz | PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that he won the popular vote in the Nov. 8 election “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally”, though he provided no evidence of widespread voter fraud. The allegation by Trump, who won the required votes in the Electoral College to […]
CAIRO: Egypt on Sunday denied Arab media reports claiming that it had a military presence in Syria, days after President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi expressed his support for the Syrian Army.“These claims only exist in the imagination of those who promote them,” the Foreign Ministry said in the statement.On Thursday, the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir said that 18 Egyptian air force pilots had been deployed on a military base […]
BEIJING Chinese police have formally detained nine people involved in a power plant construction project in the east of the country which collapsed last week killing 74 people, state news agency Xinhua said on Monday. The accident happened on Thursday morning in Fengcheng, in Jiangxi province, during work on a cooling tower for a coal-fired power plant. A tower crane collapsed, triggering the collapse of the entire […]
If you don’t like Donald Trump as your president, you can leave the country, a federal magistrate judge told newly minted Americans at a recent U.S. citizenship ceremony in San Antonio. “I can assure you that whether you voted for him or you did not vote for him, if you are a citizen of the United States, […] (via WSJ)
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Monday said his administration will scrutinize what he called “abuses” of visas amid speculation that he intends to restrict the flow of skilled workers into his country. In a two-minute video posted on YouTube, Mr. Trump for the first time since the Nov. 8 election articulated to the public what he plans to do during his first 100 days in office. “On […]
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice-President and Ruler of Dubai, attended the final day of the Grand Prix. Ryan Carter / Crown Prince Court – Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, attends the final day of the […]
By Andy Sullivan | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON An internal dispute among Donald Trump’s advisers broke out into the open on Sunday when his campaign manager warned that the president-elect could face an intense backlash from supporters if he chose Mitt Romney to be his secretary of state. Trump has been weighing whether to pick Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee who spent much of the past year criticizing […]
By Elias Biryabarema | KAMPALA KAMPALA The Ugandan authorities said on Sunday 41 tribal insurgents and 14 police officers were killed in clashes in the west of the country, and the tribal king of the area near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo was detained. The police, who announced the death toll on Twitter, said the clashes took place in the Rwenzori region, where there […]
Donald Trump has attacked Hillary Clinton’s campaign team for backing an election recount effort based on suspicions that foreign hackers rigged the vote in key states, even as the US President-elect made the unsupported claim that “millions” of Americans cast ballots illegally. Reacting to a weekend decision by the Clinton campaign to participate in a recount in Wisconsin, one of three swing states targeted for new counts by […]
By John Miller | ZURICH ZURICH Swiss voted in a referendum on Sunday to reject a speedy exit from the nation’s five nuclear power plants, as concerns over losing energy independence outweighed safety worries raised by the measure’s proponents. Nearly 55 percent of voters turned down the initiative, with 45 percent favouring it in a vote that was part of the Swiss system of direct democracy giving […]
By Tom Westbrook | SYDNEY SYDNEY The ability of Australian telecoms company Telstra Corporation (TLS.AX) to offset the fall in its traditional revenue streams by diversifying into a range of technology and other businesses is in doubt. So far, Telstra’s funding of 44 startups since 2013, the A$235 million ($175 million) spent acquiring 18 health-related companies, the purchase of more than 30 companies by its venture-capital division, […]
Chinese electronics company Xiaomi witnessed a clear decline in its smartphone profit lately. The company, however, is not afraid of the drop, as it announced it derives its profits from other products aside from smartphones. Furthermore, company executives believe that the regression in its smartphone trade would have no significant negative impact to the company. Despite experiencing a fallback in terms of revenue as of late, Xiaomi […]
ABU DHABI // Even though Sunday was a working day, there was a holiday atmosphere on Yas Island where thousands of fans flocked to the big race. Marie Jacob, 35, from South Africa, travelled from Dubai with her friends to watch the race, arriving about 3pm. “I am too excited and it’s one of the most thrilling races in the world,” she said. Ms Jacob has been […]
