$6.2 million: Amount former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon, who Trump picked to serve in his Cabinet as the Small Business Administration administrator, donated to pro-Trump political groups ahead of the election 33: Number of states that will be led by a Republican governor in 2017 3-to-1: Factor by which Team Clinton outgunned Team Trump on the TV airwaves during the general election 11: Percentage of TV ads sponsored by […]
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian president said Tuesday that he hopes the upcoming Mideast conference in France will set a timetable to end settlements, as Israel advances plans for thousands of new homes in parts of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians, despite the recent UN Security Council resolution condemning construction there.The developments came just days after the United States broke with past practice and allowed the UN Security Council […]
As president-elect Trump plays Boeing and Lockheed off against each other, China flexed its military muscles once again – after sending its aircraft carrier Liaoning into the western Pacific – by testing the latest version of its fifth-generation stealth fighter, state media reported on Monday, as it tries to end the West’s monopoly on the world’s most advanced warplanes. As The South China Morning Post reports, the […]
By Shinichi Saoshiro | TOKYO TOKYO Asia stocks followed Wall Street higher on Wednesday, while the dollar firmed against the yen following the release of upbeat U.S. economic data overnight. Crude oil prices held large gains on expectations of supply tightening once oil-producing nations implement a scheduled output cut. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.4 percent. Australian stocks rode a rise in […]
At this late date, weeks ahead of the inauguration of Mr. Trump, who openly lobbied on Israel’s side against the United Nations resolution, it is unclear what Mr. Kerry hopes to achieve from the speech, other than to leave a set of principles that he believes will one day emerge as the basis for talks, if and when they resume. Continue reading the main story Mr. Kerry, […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Matt Spetalnick | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a speech on Wednesday, days after the United States cleared the way for a U.N. resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlements. The speech, less than a month before President Barack Obama leaves office, is expected to be the administration’s last […]
TAIPEI China’s sole aircraft carrier the Liaoning has arrived at a naval base on the southern Chinese province of Hainan, a senior Taiwanese military officer said on Wednesday, after drills that took it around the island China claims as its own. China has given few details of what the Soviet-built Liaoning is up to, save that it is on a routine exercise. Taiwan has said the aircraft […]
By Thomas Wilson and Saeed Azhar | TOKYO/SINGAPORE TOKYO/SINGAPORE Japan Inc may become a more important force in dealmaking next year as its cashed-up companies seek to buy growth prospects elsewhere in the world and as Beijing’s crackdown on capital outflows prevents some Chinese companies from making foreign acquisitions, bankers and lawyers said. Facing tepid prospects at home after decades of stagnation amid a shrinking population, Japanese […]
By Jeff Mason | PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe joined U.S. President Barack Obama for a symbolic joint visit to Pearl Harbor on Tuesday, commemorating World War Two dead and pledging that Japan would never wage war again. The visit, just weeks before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office, was meant to highlight the strength of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the […]
Global debt sales reached a record in 2016, led by companies gorging on cheap borrowing costs that are now threatened by Donald Trump’s pledge to fire up the US economy. The bond rally that dominated the first half of the year helped entice borrowers that issued debt via banks to take on just over $6.6tn, according to data provider Dealogic, breaking the previous annual record set in […]
One year after this website demonstrated that Turkey was cooperating with the Islamic State, in the very least trading cash in exchange for crude oil sold to various Turkish outposts (a trade which was subsequently ended by the Russian air force), Turkey has flipped the tables and on Tuesday Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has uncovered evidence that US-led coalition forces have helped support terrorists […]
WASHINGTON In a new legal development on the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails, an appeals court on Tuesday reversed a lower court ruling and said two U.S. government agencies should have done more to recover the emails. The ruling from Judge Stephen Williams, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, revives one of a number of legal challenges […]
The software behind the exposure of a financial scandal was supplied by an Irishman’s firm, writes Joe Leogue. It may now seem like a lifetime ago, but before Trump and Brexit stole the limelight, the revelations contained within the Panama Papers were early contenders for the story of 2016. The reports that emerged from the huge cache of leaked documents showed the world how the rich exploited […]
By Yashaswini Swamynathan Wall Street was higher on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average resuming its climb toward 20,000 and the Nasdaq hitting a record as technology and health stocks rose. The blue-chip index has been riding on a post-election rally, feeding on optimism that President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for deregulation and infrastructure spending would bolster the economy. The index, which came within 13 points of […]
By Jeffrey Heller | JERUSALEM JERUSALEM The Jerusalem municipality, undeterred by a U.N. anti-settlement resolution, is due to consider on Wednesday requests for construction permits for hundreds of new homes for Israelis in areas that Israel captured in 1967 and annexed to the city. Israel is still fuming over the resolution approved last Friday by the United Nations Security Council that demands an end to settlement activity […]
Given the number of people in the city, New Yorkers rarely feel they’re on the same page with each other. The day after Donald Trump was elected United States president, however, they quietly mourned together. The weather, as if set in a Shakespearean drama, reflected the solemn state of the city’s inhabitants. In the days leading up to the election, the weather was perfectly crisp. The annual […]
The low-for-long era is over. Central banks, fiscal activism and populism pricked the bond bubble in 2016. Next year will be a lot worse for bond investors, and the aftershocks of the burst will spread across many other assets. Since the crisis, investors have been buying bonds for capital gains and equities for yield, trusting in the holding hand of easy monetary policy. However, today the central […]
Law Blog rounds up the morning’s legal news: Pooled accounts: Tens of billions of dollars every year move through opaque law-firm bank accounts that create a gap in U.S. money-laundering defenses, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. [WSJ] Judicial vacancies: Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal […] (via WSJ)
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that Thomas Bossert, former deputy homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush, would be his White House adviser on security and counterterrorism issues, according to a statement. As assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, Bossert would be Trump’s top counterterrorism chief. He currently runs a risk management consulting firm and has a cyber risk fellowship […]
By Patrick Graham | LONDON LONDON Share prices inched higher on Tuesday as trading in some of the world’s major financial markets resumed after a Christmas break, with oil and the dollar also rising marginally. Concerns about Italian banks, Chinese growth and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s protectionist bent look set to keep investors on edge into the start of 2017. But expectations the new administration will splash […]
Farah later said he was surprised that a “multibillionaire” would make so much time for a side project like this. But single-minded persistence is the essence of self-investigation. Trump, for instance, also continued to insist on the guilt of the Central Park Five — five teenagers, four black and one Latino, whose convictions in the 1989 rape and beating of a jogger were later overturned — long […]
MOSCOW Russia said on Tuesday that a U.S. decision to ease some restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria. Moscow last year launched a campaign of air strikes in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad and government forces in a conflict with rebels, some of whom are supported […]
TOKYO Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) is gauging demand for its first bond offering since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear calamity, with some market participants expecting a sale as early as February, people familiar with the plans said. Once-sceptical investors are now more comfortable with the utility’s outlook after government moves to reassess decommissioning and compensation costs, bankers and investors who asked not to be identified told Thomson Reuters […]
Taiwan fears getting caught between the US and China as President-elect Donald Trump threatens a tougher approach toward Beijing and the Chinese government intensifies its sabre-rattling in the region. Politicians and analysts in Taiwan believe that Beijing is stepping up pressure on the self-governing and democratic island, which China claims is its territory, because of actions taken by Mr Trump. On Monday, the Chinese navy sailed its […]
