A historic change in party rules has handed Shinzo Abe the possibility of becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister in more than half a century. The revision, which would allow Mr Abe to stay in power until 2021, marks a stunning turnaround for a country long known for its revolving door of prime ministers to becoming one of the most stable governments among the group of seven leading […]
The 20th century was a bull market for literacy, freedom, prosperity, health, and technology. As a result of these gains, wealth has increased exponentially, and world poverty is now at all-time lows. Life expectancy continues to improve in most countries, global literacy is near 90%, and there are well over 100 democracies throughout the planet. But, as VisualCapitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, not every positive trend can keep […]
By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The White House budget director confirmed Saturday that the Trump administration will propose “fairly dramatic reductions” in the U.S. foreign aid budget later this month. Reuters and other news outlets reported earlier this week that the administration plans to propose to Congress cuts in the budgets for the U.S. State Department and Agency for International Development by about one third. “We […]
HP Inc’s new Customer Welcome Centre in London. Image: HP Inc/Jonny Back Photography George Brasher is a 26-year HP veteran who has worked in a variety of roles in the company’s printer and PC divisions over the years and is now HP Inc’s managing director for the UK and Ireland. ZDNet caught up with him at the company’s brand-new million-pound Customer Welcome Centre (CWC) in London, to […]
Via Nicholas Eberstadt of CommentaryMagazine.com, On the morning of November 9, 2016, America’s elite—its talking and deciding classes—woke up to a country they did not know. To most privileged and well-educated Americans, especially those living in its bicoastal bastions, the election of Donald Trump had been a thing almost impossible even to imagine. What sort of country would go and elect someone like Trump as president? Certainly not […]
White House reporters are trashed with regularity by President Trump, but at least they can get a good cup of joe courtesy Tom Hanks. Hanks, the star of “You’ve Got Mail,” “Turner and Hooch,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Castaway” and “Catch Me If You Can” on Thursday sent an espresso machine to the break room for the White House press corps: The White House press corps is grateful […]
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan on Saturday executed 10 prisoners with ties to Islamist extremism who had carried out five shootings and a bombing since 2003, a government spokesman said. Among those killed in the attacks were a British tourist, an outspoken Jordanian critic of Islamist extremism and members of the Jordanian security forces. The executions on Saturday were the first since Jordan began a crackdown on Islamist […]
The calendar may have only just flipped into March, but it has already felt like a long year for dollar bulls. They have been frustrated with the wait for detail from Donald Trump on the proposed tax and fiscal policies that started their run at his election in November. It is a rally that has faded in 2017, with the US currency down 0.25 per cent this […]
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, has issued the following statement after President Trump accused former President Obama of wiretapping his phones in 2016 and Obama’s spokesman said that was false. Sasse raises several key points: if the wiretap was authorized by a FISA Court, Trump should demand to see the application, find out on what grounds it was […]
Donald Trump accused Barack Obama of tapping his phones before the November presidential election and compared the situation to the Watergate scandal that forced Richard Nixon to resign. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” Mr Trump tweeted. In an early morning tweet storm, Mr Trump claimed without providing evidence that Mr Obama […]
WASHINGTON A spokesman for ex-President Barack Obama on Saturday denied President Donald Trump’s allegation that the former president ordered a wiretap of him last October. Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said: “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.” He added, “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House […]
Emerging markets had a third month of strong inflows into their equities and bonds in February, in a further sign of reviving optimism over an asset class that was expected to be caught in the crosshairs of any US move to protectionism. There were cross-border flows to EM assets of more than $17bn in the month, up from just over $14bn in January, data from the Institute […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. So what have you heard more often: “Fox & Friends” shilling for President Trump or sophisticated people confiding their real reason for reading The New Yorker is the cartoons? Ah, if only Bob Mankoff had long ago negotiated some piece […]
Investors have poured nearly $80bn into US equity funds since November’s election as optimism over the new administration’s pro-growth agenda received a boost after President Donald Trump addressed Congress this week. Funds invested in US stocks counted $6.7bn of additions in the week to March 1, lifting flows since November 8 to $79.4bn, according to data from EPFR. The inflows have partially reversed a near constant exodus […]
By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former president Barack Obama of wire tapping him in October during the late stages of the presidential election campaign, but offered no evidence to support the allegation. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!,” Trump said in a […]
A photo of former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton glancing at a newspaper headline about U.S. Vice President Mike Pence using private email has gone viral on social media, with thousands of people commenting on it. Pence and others involved in the Republican presidential campaign last year criticized Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as U.S. Secretary of State. Clinton was on an airplane […]
US immigration officials have put a severe brake on the processing of H-1B visas over the coming months, potentially sowing confusion for companies that rely on foreign engineers and other experts to fill holes in their employee ranks. Friday’s announcement was billed as an administrative move to reduce a backlog at US Citizenship and Immigration Services. It comes as the Trump administration has been considering deeper changes […]
Earlier this week, Japanese TV audiences glimpsed a potentially revolutionary contraption from the Matsue College of Technology that rapidly separates closed shijimi clamshells into those with a live mollusc inside and those without. Cut to footage of a human sorter, expertly performing the same function at a rate of just 90 kgs of shijimi per day and whose job this machine seems destined to replace. In other […]
Via Mac Slavo of SHTFPlan.com, Within hours of the election of Donald Trump the mainstream media, their politico counterparts and social media operatives began spreading the narrative that the President was only elected as a result of the dissemination of fake news. The term itself became a rallying cry for everyone from major search engines to massive social media websites who said they would create fact checking […]
For years, editors have mocked the sports section, calling it the “toy department” of the newspaper. The unflattering moniker was applied to sports pages because they didn’t usually concern themselves with serious news like politics, the meat-and-potatoes of many newsrooms. Now, with the election of Donald Trump and the ascendency of politically minded athletes, that distinction is getting thrown out the window. So says Bryan Curtis, an […]
By Minami Funakoshi | TOKYO TOKYO U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to visit Japan, South Korea and China this month to discuss North Korea on his first trip to the region since he took up his post, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Tillerson’s trip would come as the United States and China try to put relations on an even keel after a rocky start […]
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 […]
By Alex Dobuzinskis | LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES A massive sewage spill from Mexico’s Tijuana River that polluted miles of coastland in Southern California and northern Mexico has prompted an investigation, with U.S. officials calling it deliberate and Mexican authorities saying it was an accident caused by heavy rain. The pollution closed beaches and kept surfers and swimmers out of the ocean, drawing outrage from residents of […]
By Noel Randewich | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Technology companies have been a driving force behind the U.S. stock market’s recent record rally, and despite mounting evidence of stretched valuations the sector remains a top pick for investors expecting a wave of capital expenditures by U.S. corporations. Corporate tax cuts and reduced regulations planned by President Donald Trump will give companies reason to spend more on cloud […]
