Friday 02.15 GMT Overview Asian markets retreated following another cautious session on Wall Street overnight. Investors have headed to the sidelines as they digest the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy meeting and await the closely watched US jobs report due later on Friday. Hot topic Central banks have been in focus this week. The Bank of Japan, Federal Reserve and Bank of England have all kept monetary […]
“96 million really wanting a job and they can’t get (it). You know that story. The real number — that’s the real number.” Donald Trump cited this highly misleading statistic in his first press conference after the election. It was a claim with scant evidence, but he said it anyway. But what if someone could stop a world leader during a speech and demand proof? It may […]
WASHINGTON The Trump administration said on Thursday Israel’s building of new settlements or expansion of existing ones in occupied territories may not be helpful in achieving peace with Palestinians, adopting a more measured tone than its previous pro-Israel announcements. In a statement issued two weeks before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to visit U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House said the administration “has not […]
Visa Inc (V.N), the world’s largest payments network operator, reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue as more people made payments using its network. The company, whose shares were up 3.4 percent in extended trading on Thursday, also affirmed its full-year profit and revenue forecasts. “The battle between strong business fundamentals and unfavorable exchange rate shifts will drive our results as we look ahead to the rest of […]
Looking for a show about money, power, greed, and scandal? Then look no further than the Showtime original series Billions starring Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis. And now is the time to catch up on all episodes since its season 2 premiere is about to air this month. While the hit series will come on after new episodes of Homeland, there are plenty of other fresh titles […]
The war of words with Iran came just hours after news had emerged of a combative phone call that took place on Saturday between Mr. Trump and Australia’s prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, when Mr. Turnbull pressed the president to honor an American agreement to accept 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. Continue reading the main story On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump told an audience at the […]
The rouble turned volatile as investors made sense of a tweak by the Trump administration to part of the US sanctions on Russia. The currency moved 1.7 per cent higher, trading at an 18-month high of RUB58.547, before quickly giving up most of that rise and falling back below the RUB59 level as investors parsed the decision. The changes in the sanctions appeared to re-authorised certain technology […]
02 February 2017 For years, mid-tier banks have been told they’re potentially heading for extinction The barbell effect dictates that the middle will be significantly challenged by an increasingly tough business environment, with only the very large and the very niche institutions being able to succeed. And indeed the outlook does look challenging, if one adds up the increased cost of regulatory compliance, the pressure on fees […]
By Gina Cherelus | NEW YORK NEW YORK Hundreds of New York City bodegas, grocery stores and restaurants owned by Yemeni Americans closed for hours on Thursday in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, organizers said. Loyal patrons who rely on the stores for staples of daily life had to look elsewhere for lunch after more than 1,000 locations shut their doors from noon to […]
By Maria Carolina Marcello | BRASILIA BRASILIA The Supreme Court picked its newest member on Thursday to take over the investigations of politicians implicated in Brazil’s biggest-ever graft scandal, expected to shake the country’s establishment and government because of important new testimony. Court officials said Justice Edson Fachin was chosen by random electronic selection from among a group of five of the court’s 10 members and will […]
The Bank of England upgraded UK growth forecasts significantly for the second time in six months on Thursday in the latest indication the central bank’s once-dire outlook for the economy after June’s Brexit vote has been proven overly pessimistic. The bank said it now predicts gross domestic product will grow 2 per cent this year, the same as last year and up from 1.4 per cent forecast […]
By Isabel Coles | RASHIDIYA, Iraq RASHIDIYA, Iraq His name was Ayman, but the couple who brought the boy home to their Iraqi village after buying him for $500 called him Ahmed. Islamic State militants had killed or enslaved Ayman’s parents in their purge of the Yazidi religious minority to which he belongs, then sold the four-year-old to Umm and Abu Ahmed, who are Muslims. For the […]
INFERNO The fire that hit a Japanese-owned factory in Cavite province is among the worst in the country’s economic zones, according to an official of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority. —RICHARD REYES GENERAL TRIAS, Cavite—At least 126 people, including at least two Japanese, were injured after a fire that raged for more than 18 hours starting Wednesday night hit a three-story factory at the Cavite Export Processing […]
Tiger Woods felt the pain, figuratively at least, after the former world number one failed to make a single birdie in recording a miserable five-over 77 on the opening day of the Dubai Desert Classic on Thursday. The creaking American, now ranked 666th after his long injury layoff, trailed Spain’s early leader Sergio Garcia by 12 shots and with only three players below him on the leaderboard […]
La Villette, a corrugated iron convention hall on the northern rim of Paris, was meant to be François Fillon’s launch pad towards the French presidency after winning the centre-right nomination in a landslide. But on Sunday he stood in the packed venue, days after claims emerged that the Republican candidate had allegedly employed his wife in a fake parliamentary job for years and, suddenly, victory seemed to […]
Currency traders are in a bind. Has the dollar rally run out of steam and is it ripe for a big sell-off, or has bullish momentum paused ahead of another leg higher? Here are the pros and cons for the currency as we approach several key events in February. What’s bugging the dollar? Investors’ second thoughts. Dollar trading in recent months can be split into three phases. […]
KINSHASA The death on Wednesday of Congo’s opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi leaves opponents of President Joseph Kabila seriously weakened in their bid to force Kabila to quit power after he defied constitutional term limits to stay on last year. Democratic Republic of Congo has never experienced a peaceful transition of power and Kabila’s refusal to stand down when his final term expired in December has raised fears […]
The Bank of England kept its key interest rate at 0.25%, gilt purchase program at GBP435BN, and corporate-bond plan at GBP10b, voting 9-0 on all 3 decisions. The BOE also raises growth forecasts, while keeping its inflation forecasts broadly unchanged, and said the current policy stance “depended on the trade-off between above-target inflation and slack in the economy.” The central banks also reiterated that “monetary policy could […]
Boston Dynamics is showing off its latest creation: a “nightmare-inducing” robot equipped with two wheels called Handle. At the Abundance360 event in Los Angeles, company founder Marc Raibert took the stage to unveil the machine via a video, and he had this to say as an introduction: “This is the debut presentation of what I think will be a nightmare-inducing robot, if you’re anything like me.” Looking […]
The number of high earners across the EU’s financial institutions leapt in 2015 compared with a year earlier, increasing by 33 per cent. The European Banking Authority, which collated the data, attributed the rise to the weak euro against the pound at the time. Since the UK’s vote to leave the EU last June sterling’s strength against the euro has been battered. The vast majority of those […]
Targeting the weak The us-versus-them dynamic is “easy for many people to rally around,” said Jonathan D. Weiler, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina. Targeting feared or unpopular minorities is a way of “setting a boundary,” said Sheri E. Berman, a political scientist at Barnard College — a way to distinguish between “us” deserving of protection, and “them” who are a threat. Continue reading […]
Chocolate industry executives breathed a collective sigh of relief earlier this year after the impact of the bankruptcy of a key cocoa industry player at the end of 2016 remained muted as a result of a weak cocoa market. Expectations of bumper supplies from west Africa, the leading regional producer of cocoa beans, have been weighing on bean prices of the key chocolate ingredient. This has helped […]
ROME World food prices rose to a near two-year high in January, driven by surges in sugar quotations and export prices for cereals and vegetable oils, the United Nations food agency said on Thursday. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) food price index, which measures monthly changes for a basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 173.8 points in January, versus a revised 170.2 […]
Nintendo wants the Switch to be the first thing you reach out when you wake up in the morning and the very thing you hold on to for rest of your day. Its Super Bowl ad has made the case for it while promoting The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in the process. Why Switch The 30-second clip will not claim any award, and it certainly […]
