Ecuador will have to wait until later this week for the result of Sunday’s presidential election after the country’s electoral council deemed the vote too close to call following a knife-edge poll. It was the first time in recent memory that the winner has not been declared on election night. Lenín Boltaire Moreno, the leftwing protégé of President Rafael Correa, is in touching distance of the 40 […]
At least 180 Chinese listed companies will be forced to cancel or scale back planned rights offerings worth $97bn in response to regulations that target excessive fundraising used for dubious acquisitions and financial speculation. The rules come as Chinese regulators are increasingly concerned about the trend of “exit the real, enter the fake” — a phrase used to denote companies abandoning real economic activity in favour of […]
By MacDonald Dzirutwe | HARARE HARARE As he celebrated his 93rd birthday on Tuesday, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe brushed aside persistent allegations of corruption against senior officials, saying rumour-mongers were merely targeting “big fish” in his administration. In comments to be aired on state media on Tuesday, the world’s oldest leader said he would act if shown evidence – even though graft scandals involving ministers and even […]
GENEVA Nearly 1.4 million children are at “imminent risk” of death in famines in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said on Tuesday. People are already starving to death in all four countries, and the World Food Programme says more than 20 million lives are at risk in the next six months. “Time is running out for more than a million children,” […]
By Stephanie Nebehay | GENEVA GENEVA The trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the ousted Libyan leader sentenced to death in absentia, did not meet international standards and he should face murder charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the United Nations said on Tuesday. Since his father’s toppling in 2011, Saif has been held in Zintan, a mountainous western region, by one of the […]
By Sumeet Chatterjee and Lawrence White | HONG KONG/LONDON HONG KONG/LONDON HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L) reported a 62 percent slump in annual pre-tax profit that fell way short of analysts’ estimates as the British bank took hefty writedowns from restructuring and pointed to brakes on revenue growth. HSBC shares slid more than 6 percent after the company reported revenues fell by a fifth from 2015, underscoring the challenge […]
Tuesday 08:45 GMT Overview European stocks are easing back after a mixed Asia session as Wall Street looks to re-enter the fray at record levels. The dollar is stronger and Treasury yields are moving up as expectations build of tighter US monetary policy, a scenario that is hurting gold. Hot topic European government bond markets remain a focal point for investors after an opinion poll showed Marine […]
Remember Inauguration Day? A month ago, journalists wondered whether the lessons from the Trump campaign would apply to the Trump administration. Would President Trump lay off Twitter? Would his media-bashing continue? And would he keep shutting down disfavored news organizations? So far, the answer to those questions appears to be No, yes and yes, in that order. But the fledgling Trump presidency has also imparted several important […]
By Drazen Jorgic | MALAM JABBA, Pakistan MALAM JABBA, Pakistan Atop the piste of Malam Jabba in Pakistan’s once dangerous Swat Valley skiers schuss downhill, a new Chinese-built chairlift ferries tourists to the peak, and a luxury hotel is under construction to replace one torched by the Taliban. The Taliban declared skiing “un-Islamic” during their 2007-2009 reign of terror over Swat, but improved security in recent years […]
By Michael O’Boyle and Ana Isabel Martinez | MEXICO CITY MEXICO CITY Mexico’s central bank faces difficult decisions as it balances a spike in inflation against an expected economic slowdown, Deputy Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon said on Monday. “We are in an especially complex environment,” Diaz de Leon told Reuters in an interview. Diaz de Leon pointed to the heightened risk of inflation from a weak […]
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi | AMMAN AMMAN Islamic State-linked Syrian militant groups on Monday launched a surprise attack on moderate rebels in southwestern Syria near the Golan Heights near where the Jordanian and Israeli borders converge, seizing several villages and a large town, rebels and witnesses said. Rebels said the militants were able to extend their area of control in territory that forms a natural barrier between Syria […]
Submitted by David Stockman via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, General Flynn’s tenure in the White House was only slightly longer than that of President-elect William Henry Harrison in 1841. Actually, with just 24 days in the White House, General Flynn’s tenure fell a tad short of old “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”. General Harrison actually lasted 31 days before getting felled by pneumonia. And the circumstances were considerably more benign. It seems that […]
MANILA, Philippines – A retired Philippine police officer said Monday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was a mayor, ordered and paid him and other members of a so-called liquidation squad to kill criminals and opponents, including a kidnapping suspect, his family and a critical radio commentator. Human rights lawyers who presented Arthur Lascanas at a news conference said the allegations could be grounds for impeaching Duterte, […]
HONG KONG Asian stocks held near 1-1/2-year highs in subdued early trade on Tuesday as a holiday in the United States left investors with few catalysts, while the euro nursed overnight losses as lingering concerns about the looming French election rattled its bonds. Political concerns have been at the front and center of investors’ minds over the past week or so, with markets wary about the outcome […]
Donald Trump has picked HR McMaster to be his national security adviser, replacing Michael Flynn, who was ousted just 24 days into the job. Mr Trump called Lieutenant General McMaster “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience” after announcing the decision from his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, the so-called Winter White House. The president said Keith Kellogg, the president’s acting national adviser and a supporter of Mr […]
With US stocks in record territory and the S&P 500 index the most richly valued in more than a decade, some investors see dark clouds gathering on the horizon. The S&P 500, a broad measure of the stock prices of America’s largest companies, ended last week at a record high and has risen almost 10 per cent since the election of Donald Trump as president in November. […]
A number of seminal papers appeared towards the end of the 20th century calling for more attention to be paid to the human in the security loop. For example, Anne Adams and Angela Sasse’s “Users are not the Enemy” and Mark Ackerman and Lorrie Cranor’s “Privacy critics: UI components to safeguard users’ privacy.” The research field of Usable Security was thereby launched, and quickly garnered interest amongst […]
DHAKA Bangladesh’s foreign minister called on the international community on Monday to address Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority, tens of thousands of whom have fled in recent months to Bangladesh from its mainly Buddhist neighbour. Speaking at a meeting with Yanghee Lee, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, who is in Dhaka on a three-day visit, A. H. Mahmood Ali said […]
The Panama Papers scandal is the mother of all corruption cases which continues to haunt Joseph Muscat’s Government till this day, Beppe Fenech Adami told the PANA committee today. The PANA committee is in Malta to investigate the Panama Papers scandal, which brought to light the fact that Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM chief of staff opened companies in Panama. The full declaration of […]
By Lauren Hirsch and Greg Roumeliotis Restaurant Brands International Inc, owner of the Burger King and Tim Hortons fast-food chains, is nearing a deal to acquire Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. The deal, which will likely value Popeyes at more than $1.7 billion, is a bet by Oakville, Ontario-based Restaurant Brands that it can use its international reach to introduce […]
Presidents Day 2017 is this Monday, Feb. 20, and many businesses and institutions are closed for the day. Schools, banks, post offices and more are not working today, but there are still plenty of businesses and services operating normally. Pictured here are the sculptured heads of the American presidents, from left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, carved into Mount Rushmore, South […]
By Phil Stewart | BAGHDAD BAGHDAD The U.S. military is “not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil”, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, distancing himself from remarks by President Donald Trump, as he held talks with Iraqi leaders on Monday. Mattis was the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Iraq since Trump irked Iraqis with a temporary ban ontravel to the United States and for saying America should haveseized […]
Pre-results jitters put Pearson among Monday’s sharpest fallers. Ahead of its full-year figures due Friday, Pearson faded 3.9 per cent to 642.5p. Since a profit warning in late January, the textbook publisher had rallied as much as 17 per cent amid hopes of another round of cost-cutting. But Pearson has already spent £610m on restructuring since 2013, to net cumulative savings of just £586m even before reinvestment, […]
Doha, 20 February 2017 Al Khalij Commercial Bank (al khaliji) Q.S.C. held its Annual General Assembly (AGA) and its Extraordinary General Assembly (EGA) meetings on Monday 20 February 2017. At the Annual General Assembly meeting, the shareholders endorsed the financial statements for the fiscal year ended at 31 December 2016 which reflect a Net Profit after Tax of QAR 427 million. His Excellency Sheikh Hamad Bin Faisal […]
