The Australian dollar was on the back foot following data showing the biggest yearly drop in building approvals in six months. Approvals were down 19.9 per cent in the 12 months to the end of March, tumbling from a 4.9 per cent fall in February, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was well below expectations among economists for a 10 per cent fall, […]
After nearly three years on the lam, Italian fugitive Giuseppe Donaldo Nicosia — whose lavish spending of allegedly stolen money was laid bare in the Panama Papers — has been arrested in Ukraine. Police in the Black Sea port of Odessa captured Nicosia on April 18, acting on a request from Italy’s financial police and Interpol, Italian prosecutors said in a statement. A video released by Ukraine’s […]
Akzo Nobel, the Dutch paints and coatings group, is set to reject a €26.9bn takeover offer by its US rival PPG Industries, in a move that will force its suitor to have to choose between making a hostile bid or walking away. Akzo is expected to reveal its rejection as soon as early this week, according to people close to the process. It would come roughly two […]
“Barghouti is a murderer and hypocrite who urged his fellow prisoners to strike and suffer while he ate behind their back,” Mr. Erdan said. “Israel will not give in to extortion and pressure from terrorists.” Continue reading the main story Palestinian officials organizing the strike called the videos, filmed from above, “absurd.” Mr. Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, told reporters in Ramallah, West Bank, that Israel was “trying to […]
(Image: file photo) A vulnerability in Intel chips that went undiscovered for almost a decade allows hackers to remotely gain full control over affected Windows PCs without needing a password. The “critical”-rated bug, disclosed by Intel last week, lies in a feature of Intel’s Active Management Technology (more commonly known as just AMT), which allows IT administrators to remotely carry out maintenance and other tasks on entire […]
By Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala | DAR ES SALAAM DAR ES SALAAM Thirty-two schoolchildren, two teachers and a minibus driver where killed in Tanzania when their vehicle plunged into a roadside ravine in the northern tourist region of Arusha on Saturday, a senior police official said. “The accident happened when the bus was descending on a steep hill in rainy conditions,” Arusha regional police commander Charles Mkumbo told Reuters […]
According to an ONS analysis commissioned by Public Health England, suicides are less common among women than men with the rate also varying considerably by occupation. You will find more statistics at Statista Between 2011 and 2015, workers employed in skilled construction and building trades were found to have had the most suicides, followed by elementary administation and service occupations. Source link
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist, won an emphatic victory in France’s presidential run-off against Marine Le Pen, the far-right Front National leader, on Sunday, taking 65.1 per cent of the vote, according to estimates. Mr Macron’s victory is a phenomenal achievement for the 39-year-old former Rothschild banker, who has never before held elected office and whose political movement En Marche! was […]
With the kick off of Microsoft’s Build 2017 developer conference this week, I’m expecting to hear the phrase “on the edge” more than a few times. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella set the stage for the coming distributed computing/edge computing talk during the company’s recent earnings call with press and analysts. “When everyone’s talking about the cloud, the most interesting part is the edge of the cloud,” Nadella […]
A MEMBER of the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA) on Sunday prodded Senate President Aquilino Pimentel 3rd to investigate President Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that the panel rejected the appointment of Regina Lopez as Environment Secretary because of “lobby money.” Rep. Josephine Ramirez-Sato of Occidental Mindoro said Pimentel, the chairman of the CA, should probe the bribery allegations against members of the appointments body and mete out appropriate […]
Oman’s tourism development company, Omran, has announced the appointment of Peter Walichnowski as its new CEO. Effective immediately, he will lead the company on its state-level mandate as the sultanate’s master developer of tourism destinations and urban communities, a statement said. Walichnowski joins Omran with more than 35 years of experience in tourism, real estate and mixed-use developments including stints at Dubai shopping mall operator Majid Al […]
(Image: file photo via CBS News/CBS Interactive) The FBI spent $900,000 on a hack that allowed federal agents into the San Bernardino terrorist’s encrypted iPhone, according to a Democratic senator. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) confirmed the figure this week during an open hearing. FBI director James Comey was testifying in regarding the agency’s work, the events in the run-up to the 2016 elections, and the upcoming reauthorization […]
Move faster, migrating reindeer!Image: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images By Maria Gallucci2017-05-07 18:32:09 UTC The producers of Norway’s smash-hit “Slow TV” genre have captivated audiences with videos of a 134-hour-long cruise voyage and 13 hours of people knitting. But sometimes even Slow TV can be too slow. Norway’s public broadcaster NRK recently suspended a show following the progress of migratory reindeer because the animals stopped moving, The Local […]
In a week that started with big oil and US shale producers trumpeting their ability to thrive in a world of $50 a barrel crude, the market had a very quick response: let’s see if you can do it at $45. A brutal sell-off across commodity markets this week has quickly taken the shine off strong first-quarter results that would otherwise have been viewed as a triumph […]
The Federal Reserve risks political interference and losing its independence if it maintains a large balance sheet in the longer term, former Fed officials have claimed, as debate over the central bank’s strategy for unwinding its interventions in financial markets intensifies. Kevin Warsh, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former Fed governor, said permanently holding vast quantities of assets like treasuries was […]
When you purchase a Samsung smartphone and login to your Samsung account on the device you are sent a 30 percent coupon code to purchase an accessory priced at $59.99 or less. I used mine to buy the Galaxy S8 Plus keyboard cover, priced at $59.99 ($42 with 30 percent coupon). After I purchased my Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, see my full review, I was thinking I […]
While 42.1 per cent believe that the Prime Minister is implicated in the Panama Papers scandal, half of respondents in the latest edition of The Malta Independent’s iSurvey still believe that he should not resign. Respondents were asked two distinct questions: Do you believe the Prime Minister is implicated in the Panama Papers? Should the Prime Minister resign over the allegations of his wife’s […]
An eerie calm in capital markets is fuelling fears on Wall Street that a first-quarter rebound in trading revenues could prove a one-off. Big investment banks reported generally solid profits over the first three months of the year, as investors reset their portfolios to take account of higher base interest rates, and as companies front-loaded efforts to raise money. For all bar four of the top 14 […]
Amantadine hydrochloride may be the most common medication you’ve never heard of. Now, chemists have published the very first data on this important chemical’s thermodynamic properties, including data on how it responds to heat and changes from a solid into a gas. (via WSJ)
Rights issues conducted by European companies this year have already exceeded the volume seen in the whole of 2016 — driven by a handful of large capital increases from banks seeking to repair their balance sheets. For companies, a rights issue is a means to raise equity funding from existing shareholders by offering them the right to buy more shares at a discount to the market price. […]
Volkswagen bought back hundreds of thousands of emissions-cheating cars. We just discovered what it has done with them all… As Bloomberg reports, the German automaker agreed last year to buy back about 500,000 diesels that it rigged to pass U.S. emissions tests if it can’t figure out a way to fix them. Except for a handful of 2015 models, VW dealers can’t sell the cars until […]
File Photo Spyware developer FlexiSpy planned to lure researchers to disclose vulnerabilities in its software through HackerOne. HackerOne had other ideas. Last month, the surveillance firm revealed plans on Twitter to transfer its bug bounty program to HackerOne. The bug bounty program, created in the “interest of transparency,” would have offered researchers between $100 and $5000 to privately disclose bugs to the company. FlexiSpy said that the […]
Police have ruled out terrorists being behind twin bomb blasts in Manila that killed two people and injured six others. Blasts ripped through shops and pavement stalls on Saturday night in the historic Quiapo district near the Golden Mosque, a well known landmark in the city. A member of the Philippine National Police secures the area following two overnight explosions in Manila’s Quiapo district. Photo: AP Police said on Sunday […]
Monday UN focus on migrants The UN will meet in Geneva to address the “human rights of all migrants, social inclusion, cohesion and all forms of discrimination, including racism, xenophobia and intolerance”. Organisers say they are working towards an ambitious global policy on migration, an issue high on the political agenda after the Mediterranean migrants’ crisis and US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on migration into the US […]
