Argentina is looking to sell up to $10bn of debt, taking advantage of calmer conditions across bond markets and a pullback in the US dollar. The year-old government of Mauricio Macri is just one of a host of other emerging markets, including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, all racing to raise finance soon to mitigate risks stemming from the uncertainty over the direction of US policy, with […]
Chinese internet company Baidu displays its new “Little Fish” voice-controlled home assistant unit which also features a touch screen Chinese internet colossus Baidu is out to make a splash with ‘Little Fish,’ a family robot that is a voice-controlled virtual valet akin to Amazon Echo or Google Home. Baidu showed off “Little Fish,” a translation of its Chinese name “Xiaoyu Zaijia,” on Thursday at the Consumer Electronics […]
What with the Golden Globes, the Oscars, the Baftas and the host of other award ceremonies jamming up their calendars, it’s a wonder that the stars of stage, screen and television ever have time to act. Plus, as British comedian Ricky Gervais liked to point out on each of the four occasions he presented the annual Golden Globes ceremony in Los Angeles, watching the impossibly wealthy and […]
Samsung Electronics has forecast its best quarterly profit in more than three years, projecting that operating profit for the last three months of 2016 surged 50 per cent as strong sales of chips and display panels offset the Galaxy Note 7 debacle. The world’s largest maker of memory chips as well as smartphones estimated its fourth-quarter operating profit at Won9.2tn ($7.8bn), the highest since the third quarter […]
China strengthened the renminbi’s trading range on Friday by the most since it depegged it in 2005, as investors awaited data expected to show Beijing is continuing to burn through its reserves to support the currency. The renminbi’s sudden strength has caught global markets off-guard and wrongfooted investors betting the Chinese currency would start the year by continuing its gradual slide as outflow pressures persisted in spite […]
For the past 24 hours, Chicago media have been cautiously running gruesome video of four people tying up, cutting, beating and taunting a mentally disabled man while broadcasting the ordeal live on Facebook. The video is hard to watch. One of the captors slapped the victim repeatedly and used a knife to cut the victim’s clothing then cut a plug of his hair and scalp. While the […]
Donald Trump has turned his Twitter ire on Toyota, telling the Japanese carmaker that it will face heavy penalties if it chooses to make cars for the US market in Mexico. “Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build Corolla cars for U.S. NO WAY! Build plant in U.S. or pay big border tax,” the President-elect wrote on Twitter on Thursday. The […]
Friday 02:30 GMT Overview Asia’s markets were bracing for key US jobs data on Friday, leaving stock indices flat and most currencies higher against a wobbling dollar. Within the region, attention was on the Chinese renminbi, which paused for breath after enjoying its biggest two-day rally against the dollar since the offshore market was created in 2010. Hot topic While currency markets are looking at the renminbi, […]
Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker, said that its revenues in India had exceeded $1bn last year as it looks abroad for growth amid continuing competitive pressures at home. Chinese-owned technology companies have so far led the smartphone market in India. The subcontinent is seen as the next big untapped market for mobile makers at a time when growth has begun to flag elsewhere. Sales of Xiaomi’s smartphones […]
By James Pearson | SEOUL SEOUL South Korea’s newest celebrity took an unusual route to the nation’s TV screens – years spent working his way up through the ranks of North Korea’s diplomatic corps, followed by months secluded in the custody of the rival South’s spy agency. Since his release Thae Yong Ho, the former North Korean deputy ambassador to London, has spent the first week of […]
Mexico’s central bank intervened in the foreign exchange markets to halt the peso’s record slide against the dollar but failed to provide anything more than temporary respite for its battered currency. The peso responded to the move, the first of its kind since the election of Donald Trump, with a 1.5 per cent rise against the dollar. Having tumbled to another all-time low of 21.61 pesos on […]
January 5, 2017 by: David J Lynch in Washington and Jessica Dye in New York Senator John McCain joined three top US intelligence officials on Thursday in blaming Russia for election-related cyber attacks which the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called an “unprecedented attack on our democracy”. At an extraordinary Senate hearing called to hear the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in November’s presidential […]
The decision to introduce the stipends after years of objections from the N.C.A.A. came in response to outside pressure — from essays to lawsuits — criticizing colleges for not sharing more of the money they earned off their athletes. But it also came because of the continually rising amount of cash produced by innovations like the College Football Playoff itself, which is currently in the third year […]
There are two things Microsoft can do with LinkedIn. One is leave it alone. The other comes more naturally. Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn seems like a stab in the dark; an effort to get Microsoft Dynamics 360 CRM off the ground by adding a social network. But really, it just kept Salesforce from buying LinkedIn. For some reason […]
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. Embedded plentifully during the presidential campaign, the press may now leave most consumers in the cold. I’d been talking to Merrill Brown, director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair, New Jersey State University, about Megyn Kelly’s big […]
January 4, 2017 by: Joe Rennison and Eric Platt in New York Wall Street’s debt engine started in record form at the start of 2017, as companies sought to lock in borrowing costs shortly before the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president raises hopes for faster growth and higher interest rates. Eleven companies and banks sold $19.9bn of debt in the US as global financial markets […]
ANKARA The identity of the gunman who killed 39 people in an attack on an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Day has been established, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a televised interview with the state-run Anadolu news agency on Wednesday. The gunman, who fled after the attack, remains at large. Anadolu has said some 20 people have been detained as part of the investigation into the […]
The opening of Quincy Jones’s first jazz club would be big news anywhere in the world, but in Dubai – a city without a discernible jazz scene or dedicated purist-pleasing venue – it is at once a massive vote of confidence and a brave stab in the dark from a man notoriously unafraid of risk. On the basis of my midweek visit to Q’s, the man is […]
Even as Theresa May prepares to make a long-awaited speech on her Brexit strategy, the prime minister is facing fresh claims that her government is turning a deaf ear to news and advice on Brexit it does not want to hear. Former civil servants expressed dismay at the resignation of Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s EU ambassador, on Tuesday, saying the UK was losing its best negotiators with […]
Wednesday 05:00 GMT Overview Data-fuelled optimism helped lift equities for a second day in Asia as Japanese investors cheered the weaker yen after the US dollar hit new 14-year highs. With few significant events on the regional calendar for Wednesday, it was left to overnight gains on Wall Street to set the tone Hot topic Is it too early to start talking about Friday’s US non-farm payrolls […]
East really does meet West in Zhang Yimou’s latest film, The Great Wall. An epic blockbuster in the grand tradition of the Hollywood monster movie, it plunders ancient Chinese mythology for a story set during the 11th century. The idea? That the country’s most famous landmark – the 21,196 km-long fortification that runs from Dangong to Lop Lake – was built to defend its inhabitants from ravenous beasts […]
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is embarking on a tour of the US following Donald Trump’s election as president, in an attempt to understand how the country has been divided by the impact of globalisation and technology. The chief executive of the world’s largest social network has made it a personal challenge to have visited people in every state in the US by the end of the year, […]
Megyn Kelly is to leave Fox News for rival NBC, ending months of speculation over the future of one of the biggest stars in television news. As part of a multiyear deal, Ms Kelly will anchor a new weekday daytime show, a Sunday night news show, and contribute to breaking news and special events coverage, NBC said. The company did not disclose her new salary, although 21st […]
Starbucks has already established itself as the undisputed king of retail coffee chains. Now one Wall Street analyst thinks it can overtake McDonald’s as the world’s most valuable restaurant chain. The Seattle-based coffee chain’s shares fell 7.5 per cent last year, as investors warily eyed a deceleration in same-store sales from the first half to the second. The announcement last month that long-serving chief executive Howard Schultz […]
