Authored by Bethany Bell Rome has been struggling to cope with a rubbish crisis and Austria has spare capacity at a waste-to-energy plant near Vienna. So a deal has been struck. The Italians are paying Austrian company EVN to dispose of up to 70,000 tonnes of Roman household refuse this year. The waste is transported by train through northern Italy, over the Alps and ends up at […]
The Trump administration’s interest in issuing the US government’s first “ultra-long” bonds, following in the footsteps of countries such as the UK, Mexico and Belgium, is facing scepticism from fund managers, analysts and former officials. The US Treasury in April asked its “primary dealers”, the club of banks that underwrite and arrange the government’s debt sales, to explore whether there would be demand for Treasuries that mature […]
To understand the dynamics of Pakistani politics, one needs to watch the popular drama series Game of Thrones. Based on George R R Martin’s series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire this drama serial focuses on the moves and conspiracies to win power games. I am sure if the writer or director sees Pakistan’s version of Game of Thrones they would forget their own drama series. […]
Authored by Paul Craig Roberts, Not everyone likes to hear about the threat of nuclear war. Some find refuge in denial and say that nuclear war is impossible because it makes no sense. Unfortunately, humankind has a long record of doing things that make no sense. In previous posts in recent years I have pointed out both written documents and changes in US war doctrine that indicate […]
Even before the first details of Nintendo’s Switch games console were unveiled to the world in early January, the industry knew it would be a cross between a home console and a handheld gaming machine and could sense an all-in bet coming. On Friday, behind the hoopla of the company’s latest game launch, analysts spotted the same tell: a giveaway sign of a company that desperately wants […]
ALOR STAR: Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah today visited the victim of a freak storm that blew away a tent during the 63rd PAS Muktamar on Saturday night. Ahmad Bashah met the victim during his visit to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital (HSB) for his routine checkup. “Since I am here and I heard about what happened last night, I decided to visit the […]
30 April 2017 UAE – According to the annual YouGov survey conducted by IP Global, the leading full-service property investment company; North America, UK, Germany and Australia remain the top property investment destination for UAE residents. The survey results show that when it comes to investing in property abroad, North America is the most popular market among UAE citizens. The UK with 13% and Australia with 11%, […]
(Image: file photo) The National Security Agency is set to stop using a highly classified program that in part collected Americans’ emails and text messages without a warrant. Details of the program were largely overlooked when it was first disclosed in documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. The leaks provided a small but critical window into how the US government carries out surveillance on Americans, […]
Authored by Patrick O’Shaughnessy via InvestorsFieldGuide.com, My guest this week is Danny Moses, who was directly in the middle of the biggest trades in market history, chronicled by Michael Lewis in his book the Big Short. Danny was the head trader on the Frontpoint team led by Steve Eisman, which was one of a small group of firms that figured out, in real time, the dire situation […]
Authored by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners, Back on March 10, the New York Fed’s attempt at real-time GDP forecasting predicted that the Q1 2017 estimate would be 3.2%. That would have qualified as another decent quarter, the second out of the past three and somewhat in keeping with “reflation.” As we know today, the advance figure calculated by the Commerce Department amounted to just 0.69% […]
If you feel like mealtime with the children is more of a battle of wills than a chance to connect with each other and build healthy-eating habits, you are not alone. Whether you are dealing with toddlers or teenagers, enjoying a meal without having to fight through protests, negotiation and tears can be a challenge that isn’t always easy to tackle with tenacity – let’s face it, […]
BERLIN Online fashion retailer Zalando (ZALG.DE) is pondering opening stores in major cities such as London, Paris or Berlin, the company’s co-chief executive told Germany’s Manager Magazin. “We have proper fans in the metropolises who spend much time with us and order a lot,” co-Chief Executive Rubin Ritter said in an interview published on Saturday. “It could be interesting for them to also experience the brand offline,” […]
Say you’re a gaming company that released a brand-new console, a throwback to one of your old hits. Suppose it became an instant rousing hit to the point where a lot of people went out of their way to snag one from any store that had it. This is great, right? People actually want your product, a demand which you had not expected from the get-go. What […]
Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly ringing the bell at the NYSE Friday. Cloudera closed out its first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange with its share price up 20 percent to $18.10. The Apache Hadoop-based software and services distributor started trading Friday morning at $17.80 a share under the ticker symbol CLDR. On Thursday evening, Cloudera priced its shares at $15, raising around $225 million […]
When it comes to repackaging bad loans in the eurozone, 2017 has been a tale of two peripheries. While global investors who had been hoping to buy debt backed by Italy’s non-performing loans have been left disappointed, in Ireland deals are gathering momentum. Lone Star this week priced its latest securitisation of Irish mortgages, with the US private equity firm selling €420m of bonds backed by distressed […]
Emerging from an Hermès store in Shanghai with a shiny new watch costing “tens of thousands” of renminbi, Zhao Feifei is emblematic of a younger generation of Chinese consumers driving a rebound in sales of European luxury brands. “I’m earning more than before so I’m more willing to spend,” says Ms Zhao, who works in an internet finance company. The 30-year-old is one of the many customers […]
By Nobuhiro Kubo | SASEBO SASEBO As tension spikes on the Korean peninsula, a French amphibious assault carrier sailed into Japan’s naval base of Sasebo on Saturday ahead of drills that risk upsetting China, which faces U.S. pressure to rein in North Korea’s arms programmes. The Mistral will lead exercises next month near Guam, along with forces from Japan, the United States and Britain, practicing amphibious landings […]
By Jeffrey Dastin | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Amazon.com Inc’s ventures far beyond online retail, from cloud computing to movie making, are raising questions among corporate strategy experts about its focus. The Seattle-based company wowed Wall Street again this week with a 23 percent jump in sales, pushing its shares to an all-time high. But there are concerns that if blockbuster growth stops, investors may come to […]
At Al Azhar, he embraced the mosque’s Grand Imam, Ahmad al-Tayeb, who urged the West not to hold an entire religion “accountable for the crimes of any small group of followers.” Continue reading the main story Pope Francis then turned to matters of state, seeking to encourage progress on human rights from his host, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Mr. Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood in a military […]
The press freedom situation in the United States is worsening not only because of President Trump’s anti-press rhetoric but because of a constellation of factors including arrests, detainment, lawsuits, physical violence and outright censorship, according to a new report. The report, released by the London-based Index on Censorship this week, chronicles the recent threats to journalist safety and freedom of expression and takes a holistic view of […]
When the Nasdaq Composite index first spent two days above the 5,000 mark, it signalled the last gasp of a spectacular bull market. Confidence in internet companies’ power to change the world and mint fortunes was about to collapse. Seventeen years later the market has hit a milestone of 6,000, part of a run of record highs for global equity markets. While stocks have again been rising […]
Alphabet/Google announced first quarter financial results that beat Wall Street estimates. But the jump in revenues hides a large problem that hasn’t been solved. From Matthew Lynley at Techcrunch The Google core business is, as usual, quite boringly efficient. We tend to see the same story every quarter – the value of each ad (cost-per-click) goes down while the number of ad impressions goes up, and Google […]
When the U.S. Marines and Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 over 200,000 Allied forces lost their lives in a matter of weeks. Now, courtesy of some futuristic military technology, “storming a beach” can be done from a completely remote location with some machine-gun wielding robots and not a single human casualty. Per a recent Fox News note, in addition to miniature robot […]
Boarding completed, seatbelts are fastened and the aircraft is slowly rolling over the tarmac to the runway, almost ready for takeoff. But before the plane can leave the ground, all passengers are made aware of the safety features on board via video on screen. Safety videos are a necessary form of visual communication to ensure all passengers can follow procedures in case of an unlikely emergency. However, […]
