With its high growth rates and huge potential, battery demand is a key focus for metals markets. If 2016 was all about lithium, then 2017 should see cobalt start to attract greater attention. Prices have already accelerated to levels last seen in 2011, as rising demand from the core portable electronics meets relatively stagnant supply growth. And while risks remain — technological on the demand side and […]
By Michael Martina and Philip Wen | BEIJING BEIJING Defying pressure for a strong increase in defence spending, China said on Saturday its military budget this year would grow about 7 percent, its slowest pace since 2010. Last year, with China’s economy slowing, the defence budget recorded its lowest increase in six years, 7.6 percent, the first single-digit rise since 2010, following a nearly unbroken two-decade run […]
KARACHI: The Panama Papers — a huge leak of documents detailing the alleged secret offshore holdings of global elite — were released in April 2016. The leak made headlines all-over the world, but its impact was probably most keenly felt in Iceland. Just two days after the leak appeared, Iceland’s prime minister had to resign from his office over protests by the people. Thousands of people had […]
By Benjamin Kang Lim and Philip Wen | BEIJING BEIJING China’s sweeping overhaul of its anti-corruption architecture could enable President Xi Jinping to justify retaining his key ally and top graft buster Wang Qishan beyond retirement age, sources with ties to the leadership say. Breaking the unwritten retirement rule could also set a precedent for Xi, 63, to defy current expectations that he will step down as […]
In a bill aimed at encouraging asylum seekers to leave voluntarily, Austrian lawmakers are considering halting the provision of food and accommodation to migrants who are denied asylum and refuse to leave the country. Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population, as it was swept up in Europe’s migration crisis when hundreds of thousands of people crossed its […]
(Image: file photo) The clock is ticking for a controversial surveillance provision, which is is set to expire at midnight at the end of the year. But the Trump administration has signaled that it will support its clean reauthorization. Passing a clean version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, is “necessary to protect the security of the nation,” according to a White House official speaking […]
Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, has been convulsed by civil strife for more than two years. In the west, Houthi rebels ousted the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the United States’ main counterterrorism partner in the country, and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition of mostly Sunni Arab countries that back Mr. Hadi. Continue reading the main story In the […]
Speaking to American state governors this week in the state dining room of the White House, Donald Trump hit on a point that is of no surprise to investors: healthcare is “an unbelievably complex subject”. The Affordable Care Act, one of the two key pillars of the healthcare reform signed into law by former US President Barack Obama in 2010, is 906 pages long — the table […]
One of these sites is not like the other: ESPN.com, CBSSports.com, FoxSports.com, SBNation.com. To the titans of sports coverage, networks with broadcast rights to major sporting events, SB Nation is a scrappy flotilla of sports blogs led by its eponymous flagship site. Because it can’t air games, SB Nation has carved out a niche for itself as a multifaceted clearinghouse for sports fans, with individual sites for […]
By Tulay Karadeniz | ANKARA ANKARA Turkish leaders condemned Germany on Friday for cancelling rallies of Turkish residents due to be addressed by Ankara’s ministers and accused Berlin of giving “shelter” to Turkey’s enemies. As the diplomatic spat between the two countries became increasingly angry, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said a German journalist being held in Turkey was a “German agent” and a member of an armed […]
ABU DHABI // Rock singer Rod Stewart made a public apology this weekend after being filmed carrying out a prank execution in the Abu Dhabi desert during his latest world tour. A video posted on his wife Penny Lancaster’s Instagram account, which has since been removed, showed the 72-year-old carrying out a mock beheading, mimicking real murders by ISIL terrorists. Stewart said he and his friends were […]
Evan Spiegel gazed out over the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where onlookers were recording him with his company’s retro-cool, video-enabled sunglasses, then rang the opening bell on Snap’s first day as a public company. Breaking the tech titan’s dress code in his suit and tie, he grinned and, unlike his biggest rival, made no grand proclamations about his company’s world-changing potential. Nearly five years […]
Investors are aggressively betting against US shopping centres using a derivatives index of commercial mortgage-backed securities that has slumped 10 per cent from its peak in January. The health of the US retail industry has been declining for several years but recent lacklustre holiday sales, alongside rising interest rates and a stronger dollar, have reflected the intensifying pressure across the roughly $150bn industry for commercial mortgages tied […]
ExtraHop, an analytics startup based in Seattle, has long had a unique approach to analytics: its technology works by collecting data directly from network packets. When I first became acquainted with ExtraHop, I assumed that packet-level data collection was aimed squarely at machine/operational analytics. But while ExtraHop does indeed excel in that arena, getting data in real time hot off the network, the technology goes well beyond […]
By Lindsay Dunsmuir and Howard Schneider | CHICAGO CHICAGO The Federal Reserve is set to raise its benchmark interest rate later this month as long as economic data on jobs and inflation holds up, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday, in comments that likely cement a rate hike at its next meeting. Several of Yellen’s U.S. central bank colleagues in recent days had also put a […]
A tell-tale sign of a booming equity market is a hot technology listing and the blockbuster debut by Snap, duly summoned memories of the dotcom era. Shares in the parent of the popular messaging app surged more than 40 per cent in their New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday where the fresh-faced co-founders rang the opening bell to cheers from the trading floor. On Friday, they […]
COLOMBO Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka fell in February for the first time since a nearly three-decade-long civil war ended in May 2009, government data released on Friday showed. It snapped a 93-month streak of tourist increases on the island, popular for its Indian Ocean beaches and varied wildlife. Tourism accounts for close to 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s economy. Arrivals in February edged down 0.4 percent […]
By Jonathan Allen and Joseph Ax | NEW YORK NEW YORK U.S. prosecutors in New York charged a St. Louis, Missouri, man on Friday in connection with at least eight bomb threats made against Jewish organizations across the country. Juan Thompson, 31, was taken into custody on Friday morning in St. Louis and was expected to make an initial court appearance there later in the day. It […]
In the first stage of the Trump Rally (from the election to year-end), investors appeared to hedge as the market rallied. However, since the start of the new year, Goldman Sachs’ proprietary macro hedging indicator has traded along with equities, suggesting that investors are buying stocks and discarding protection. As Goldman’s John Marshall and Katherine Fogertey explain, the Trump rally has changed the market – Investors Stopped […]
JUBA South Sudan has arrested four soldiers after residents accused the army of beating and raping civilians in a small village near the capital last month, a military spokesman said on Friday, in a case that became a symbol of spiralling military abuses. The military launched an investigation after a local bishop brought five victims, including young girls, from Kubi village for medical treatment in the capital. […]
YEMEN: US fighter jets pounded Al-Qaeda targets in Yemen for a second straight day on Friday, security and tribal sources said, as Washington steps up its air war against the jihadists.The Pentagon said it had carried out more than 20 strikes on Thursday targeting Al-Qaeda positions in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan and the central province of Baida.Yemeni officials said at least 12 suspected militants […]
DUBAI // What was once a wide, empty terrace at Ranches Primary School has been transformed into a peaceful outdoor garden where children as young as five can meditate and grow fruits and vegetables. Early years pupils visit the Rooftop Mindful Garden at least twice a day to calm their minds and nurture plants as part of a health awareness education programme the school is piloting with […]
While equity market euphoria at the prospect of President Donald Trump’s spendthrift, deregulatory agenda remains undimmed, bond investors are sending a very different message. US equity gauges have continued to climb this year, propelled by hopes of deregulation, tax cuts, government spending and more business-friendly policies. This week all four of the biggest stock indices achieved yet another “Grand Slam” of fresh records in the wake of […]
YANGIZABAR, Uzbekistan A newspaper editor jailed for 18 years in Uzbekistan says he was subjected to such harsh torture that he forgot the names of his daughters, but was kept alive by the support of human rights groups. Muhammad Bekjanov, 63, was released in February, months after the death of president Islam Karimov who had run the Central Asian nation for 27 years. Editor of the opposition […]
