LONDON Battered bonds and emerging market currencies enjoyed some respite on Thursday as the dollar took a breather from a post-U.S. election charge that has taken it to a 13-1/2 year high. Wall Street looked set for a quiet start and Europe’s main stock markets <0#.INDEXE> were shuffling sideways as the dip in global bond yields cooled bank stocks, which have been rising on better lending profits. […]
Thanks to NASA’s Spitzer and Swift space telescopes joining forces to study a microlensing event, astronomers had a rare achievement of locating an elusive brown dwarf planet. The debut collaboration made the microlensing event a useful occasion. During the phenomenon, a distant star looks brighter thanks to the gravitational pull of a cosmic object in the foreground, which, in turn, makes highlighting of low-mass bodies that orbit big stars […]
“When the economic crisis hits the elite, it means the suffering is all over the place,” said Malak Rostom, the vice president of the student union. “If we can’t afford it, we can tell how much other people are suffering.” Continue reading the main story Some Egyptians may sneer at the problems of the children of middle- and upper-class families, worried about tuition increases that dwarf the […]
UK retail sales grew rapidly in October as consumers — yet to experience the impact of the weaker currency — continued to spend and colder weather boosted clothing sales. The seasonally adjusted volume of sales was 1.9 per cent higher in October than in September, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday. Sales were boosted by strong growth in clothing and footwear as the end of […]
Thursday 08:30 GMT. European and US equity gauges are subdued as government bond yields dip from multi-month highs and the dollar stalls after hitting its strongest level since 2003. Following a muted Asia-Pacific session — encapsulated by Japan’s Nikkei 225 closing unchanged — index futures suggest the S&P 500 will dip 1 point to 2,176 when the opening bell rings later in New York, leaving the Wall […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Eight hospitals bombed in the past week, five of them within the last 48 hours. Food stores running out of supplies. Scores of people killed in a single day. By Wednesday night, it was clear that the escalation feared for weeks in rebel-held parts of northern Syria was underway, as Russian and Syrian government warplanes carried out a second straight day of intense bombardment. […]
This image of the sunlit part of Jupiter and its swirling atmosphere was created by a citizen scientist (Alex Mai) using data from Juno’s JunoCam instrument. JunoCam’s raw images are available at www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam for the public to peruse and process into image products. Source link
The government will unveil plans on Thursday to cut dramatically the amount that car crash victims can claim for whiplash injuries. A consultation from the Ministry of Justice will say that Britain is in the grip of an “epidemic of whiplash claims” which is driving up the cost of car insurance. It says whiplash claims are 50 per cent higher than they were a decade ago, despite […]
Since last week’s US elections, emerging market assets have been spooked by the possibility of higher US interest rates and greater trade protectionism. That this should result in sudden and broad-based losses for holders of all types of EM investments — including equities, local debt, external bonds and currencies — should not come as a great surprise. What is unusual, however, is for such large losses to […]
CAIRO — An Egyptian criminal court sentenced a police officer to life in prison on Wednesday for fatally shooting a man who refused to give him a free cup of tea. It was an unusual move by a court in a country where the police are generally allowed to act with impunity, human rights activists said. The shooting in April, in which the tea vendor was killed […]
Rio Tinto has fired Alan Davies, chief executive of its energy and minerals division, and Debra Valentine, the head of legal affairs, after reviewing a $10.5m payment made for advisory services on a giant iron project in Guinea. Last week, the FTSE 100 mining company suspended Mr Davies and announced the resignation of Ms Valentine after contacting regulators about the payment of $10.5m to François Polge de […]
The Middle East will require additional power capacity of 267 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, an increase of 66 percent, according to engineering giant Siemens. The German conglomerate, its outlook for the energy landscape in the region, said growing demand will require and 66 GW of of power over the next 15 years. Siemens’ report maps out the region’s current power generation scenario, upcoming challenges, allocation of energy […]
Amid his display cases of gold coins and jewellery, Suresh Jain was in bullish spirits as he considered Indian households’ traditionally strong demand for the precious metal. “There is no change,” said the 55-year-old owner of BJ Jain Jewellers, in Mumbai’s Zaveri gold bazaar. “Gold is a need of the people. It is not a luxury item; it is essential.” Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is putting […]
SINGAPORE Crude oil futures dropped on Thursday after official inventory reports indicated a larger-than-expected build in U.S. oil stocks. Crude inventories in the United States rose by 5.3 million barrels in the week to Nov. 11, compared with expectations for an increase of 1.5 million barrels. The climb in inventories was mainly due to higher imports that averaged 910,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to data released […]
In June this year, a video titled The DNA Journey went viral. In it, 67 people from all over the world took a closer look at their ancestry. After a quick spit into a jar, their DNA was sent away and the participants were asked to return two weeks later. Many of the results were, to say the least, surprising. Those who expressed a strong sense of […]
Photo The remains of Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty were carried by an Army team at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last week. Credit Steve Ruark/Associated Press JERUSALEM — American officials said on Wednesday that they were investigating the killing of three United States soldiers at a Jordanian air base this month as a possible terrorist attack and dismissed suggestions that the three had done anything […]
Donald Trump has pushed back on claims that infighting is hampering the critical process of putting in place his cabinet and top officials, insisting that his presidential transition is on track despite a series of dismissals and resignations. “It is going so smoothly,” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday, saying reports of chaos inside the team now headed by Mike Pence, his vice-president, were “totally wrong”. He also denied the transition […]
Lawyer Hani Hussein, who was barred from participating in the parliamentary polls, has claimed a “big surprise” could delay Kuwait’s November 26 elections and lead to the reinstatement of the 2013 National Assembly which was dissolved in October. Hussein made the announcement on his official Twitter account but declined to reveal the nature of the surprise. However, he said it relates to a provision in the election […]
Global investor expectations of inflation have surged to their highest level in more than a decade, according to a survey of money managers that underlines how Donald Trump’s election as US president has electrified financial markets. More than 80 per cent of those surveyed this month by Bank of America Merrill Lynch believe that the global level of prices will rise over the next 12 months. Although […]
Eight years after the launch of the National, state-owned Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADM) has sold the English-language newspaper. WAM reported that the paper had been sold to International Media Investments (IMI), a subsidiary of private investment firm Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC). ADMIC was set up in 2010 as a special purpose vehicle for a partnership with broadcaster BSkyB to launch the Sky News Arabia […]
For four years, officials said, they had patiently requested that Dharam Pal Singh provide reliable evidence to verify his birth date: school records, military records, baptismal records, medical records, school records of his children. “We have absolutely nothing to prove how old he really is,” Pashkin said. “He could be 80; he could be 100. We don’t know.” Through the years, Singh had not been consistent in […]
Wednesday 17:00 GMT. US and European stocks were softer as the dollar hit a 13-year high and bond yields eased off multi-month peaks, as investors reined in bets that US president-elect Donald Trump’s pledge of infrastructure spending and tax cuts would accelerate inflation. In Europe, Germany’s Dax fell 0.7 per cent as shares in Bayer fell 4.2 per cent after the drugmaker raised €4bn to pay for […]
A popular measure of the dollar climbed to its highest level in more than 13 years, propelled by the expectation of rising US interest rates, the expectation of significant fiscal stimulus and concerns about the rise of populist forces in Europe. The DXY, an index that measures the dollar against a basket of its main peers and primarily weighted to the euro, gathered pace on Wednesday, rising […]
Photo Destroyed buildings in the Syrian village of Kfar Jales, near Idlib, on Wednesday, following air strikes by Syrian and Russian warplanes. Credit Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images LONDON — President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in his first remarks since the American election, has called President-elect Donald J. Trump “a natural ally, together with the Russians, Iranians and many other countries” in the struggle against […]
