By Elizabeth Piper | LONDON LONDON After nine months of preparation, bitter public argument and a battle with parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May is launching talks with the European Union armed with a plan she hopes will secure a better divorce deal than many expect. But what is it? Although May has published a policy document outlining a 12-point approach to the talks that will reshape […]
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. Donald Trump is temporary ratings gold, which is either evidence of renewed civic engagement or merely the decline of Western civilization. Variety reports that Fox News “finished far and above its competition in the ratings for the first quarter of […]
So much flip-flopping from Dennis Gartman in just the past week, it is enough to make one’s head spin. After missing Friday’s move lower, on Monday morning Gartman said he was actively looking to “re-establish net short positions” when S&P futures were sharply lower to which we said “at the rate the S&P is covering its opening losses, he should be able “find a point” where the […]
By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper | LONDON LONDON Prime Minister Theresa May will file formal Brexit divorce papers on Wednesday, pitching the United Kingdom into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the endurance of the European Union. Nine months after Britons voted to leave, May will notify EU Council President Donald Tusk in a letter that the UK really is quitting […]
After nine months’ gestation, the Brexit process has started. Both sides of the referendum have political points; Brexiters can say the UK economy is growing and there has been no market implosion, while Remainers can say UK assets have drastically underperformed the rest of the world, and the costs of the historic sterling devaluation are yet to be counted. Now, it is time to work out what […]
LIMA Extreme floods wreaking havoc in Peru are also threatening the South American country’s rich archeological heritage and the tourism that thrives on it, a Peruvian archaeologist said on Tuesday. At least 50 archaeological sites in Peru have been damaged by the intense rains that are battering northern Peru, resulting in a drastic drop in related tourism, said archaeologist and explorer Walter Alva. Alva discovered the tomb […]
Spring offers ideal sightseeing weather, with destinations ranging from Japan and Rome to Cuba and Australia. David Whitley rounds up where to go this Spring. newslide April 2017 Japan The spring months are when Japan turns pink, with the famous cherry blossom trees bursting into life across the country. April is the peak of cherry blossom season and hits that sweet spot where temperatures are comfortable for […]
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) mandated Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to advise on its initial public offering, sources familiar with the situation have said. The three banks, which were mandated as joint global coordinators, declined to comment. One source said the company had earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of at least $1.5 billion and that its closest publicly traded […]
The Senate Standing Committee of Privileges has found that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raids on the offices of former Labor Senator Stephen Conroy in a bid to recover leaked confidential National Broadband Network (NBN) documents constituted “improper interference” on the functions of Parliament. “The committee considers that an improper interference has occurred on this occasion,” committee chair Jacinta Collins told Parliament on Tuesday. While the Senate […]
After the biggest downturn in a generation, there are reasons to think the worst of the commodities slump might be over. The Financial Times’s Commodities Global Summit began on Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland. Here are the main talking points from the first day. There was no shortage of talk on Opec, which in November agreed its first reduction in supply in almost a decade. Executives from some of the world’s […]
By Josh Smith and James Mackenzie | KABUL KABUL Afghanistan plans to double the number of elite special forces from 17,000 troops, officials said, part of a long-term strategy to bolster units stretched and exhausted by persistent attacks from Taliban insurgents and other Islamist militants. Special forces, who represent a small fraction of the 300,000-strong armed forces, have been carrying out nearly 70 percent of the army’s […]
Photo A man carried the bodies of people killed in fighting between Iraq security forces and the Islamic State in Mosul last week. Credit Felipe Dana/Associated Press WASHINGTON — The senior United States commander in Iraq said Tuesday that an American airstrike likely triggered the collapse of a building in Mosul that killed more than 100 civilians this month, but indicated that an investigation would also examine […]
By Kentaro Hamada and Taro Fuse | TOKYO TOKYO U.S. nuclear developer Westinghouse Electric Co plans to seek bankruptcy protection from creditors on Tuesday as it struggles with losses that have thrown its Japanese parent Toshiba Corp into crisis, people familiar with Toshiba’s thinking said. Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse, crippled by cost overruns at two U.S. projects in Georgia and South Carolina, will file for protection under Chapter 11 […]
The former chief financial officer of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel has been offered immunity from prosecution by government lawyers investigating payments to women allegedly harassed by Roger Ailes, the network’s former chairman, according to people briefed on the case. Mark Kranz was CFO of Fox News from 2004 until last year, leaving the channel shortly after Mr Ailes was pushed out by its parent company, 21st […]
Agricultural trading bosses gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland for the FT’s Commodities Global Summit have warned against closed borders and potential trade wars as rising protectionist rhetoric casts a shadow over their ability to access global markets. David MacLennan, Cargill chief executive, says raising tariffs will hurt the world economy, and Carl Casale, head of CHS, a leading US grain co-operative, highlights the damage it would wreak on […]
For as long as man has looked up at the heavens, he’s pondered one question: Are we alone in the universe? While the answer remains unclear, there’s a tonne of research being conducted to determine just what life-sustaining planets beyond Earth might exist — and what they might look like. There’s no shortage of imaginative renderings and fiction about what such worlds may entail, as well. Countless […]
PARIS Francois Hollande’s election as president in 2012 was supposed to herald a new dawn for French socialism after 17 years of right-wing rule, but by June his party could be struggling to survive. Weeks before the start of an election to pick France’s next president, the ruling bloc is in tatters. Socialist Party (PS) nominee Benoit Hamon is floundering after adopting a hard-left programme that alienated […]
Since its founding in 1857, The Atlantic has been a fundamentally American magazine. It was launched by leading lights of American literature: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Nathaniel Hawthorne reported for the magazine from Civil War battlefields. President Abraham Lincoln once said that a favorable article in the magazine could save him seven or eight battles in the Civil War. But soon, […]
Elon Musk is a man who wants to do a myriad of things: he wants autonomous electric cars cruising down streets in the near future, he wants to send people to Mars and our Moon, and he wants to build a substitute to trains that travels blazingly fast. Now, he has another item in his to-do list: to link up your human brain with artificial intelligence. How? With the […]
TOKYO Investigators pored over a Japanese mountain on Tuesday after a massive avalanche tore through a group of high school students and teachers, killing eight, amid questions about why avalanche warnings were ignored and whether they had proper equipment. The avalanche in central Japan on Monday, which struck along some 50 metres (150 ft) of a steep slope just above a ski area, killed seven students and […]
The Australian Federal Court has handed down its decision in Telstra’s proceedings against the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC)’s final access determination (FAD) on wholesale copper pricing, with the judgment reaffirming the regulator’s decision. The ACCC’s FAD, published in October last year, cut the prices that the telecommunications giant can charge wholesale customers for use of its legacy copper network during the transition to the NBN […]
By Tom Westbrook and Benjamin Weir | SYDNEY SYDNEY Howling winds, heavy rain and huge seas pounded Australia’s northeast on Tuesday, damaging homes, wrecking jetties and cutting power to thousands of people as Tropical Cyclone Debbie tore through Queensland state’s far north. Wind gusts stronger than 260 km per hour (160 mph) were recorded at tourist resorts along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as the powerful storm, […]
The bagpiper striding across the bottle label wears flowing green tartan, a luxuriant black moustache — and a red turban. Bagpiper whisky, distilled by Diageo through its United Spirits subsidiary in India, is one of India’s most popular brands, available even in a tetra pak. But at Rs300 ($4.50) for a 750ml bottle, it is not a brand that will power a rapid return on Diageo’s £1.9bn […]
SEOUL South Korea’s family-run conglomerates are facing calls for a shakeup in their governance from a leading candidate in May’s presidential election, following the ouster of former President Park Geun-hye in a burgeoning influence-peddling scandal. The conglomerates known as chaebol have come under the reform buzz saw before, only to emerge bigger and stronger than ever. The country’s four biggest chaebol groups account for around half the […]
