By Tom Perry, Isla Binnie and Vladimir Soldatkin | BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW BEIRUT/ROME/MOSCOW Russia said on Saturday it was ready for talks with the United States about a withdrawal of all Syrian rebels from eastern Aleppo where advances by the Russian-backed Syrian army and its allies threaten to deal a crushing blow to the rebellion. An official with an Aleppo rebel group accused Russia of backtracking on ideas agreed […]
ALEPPO, SYRIA: Syrian government forces have recaptured half the former opposition stronghold of east Aleppo, a monitor said, with the UN now facing a “race against time” to aid children forced out by the bloody offensive.President Bashar Assad’s forces have made swift gains since their offensive against Aleppo — once Syria’s commercial powerhouse — began on November 15.Tens of thousands of civilians have streamed out of the […]
Like Christmas ornaments on Main Streets across America, Wall Street banks’ forecasts for the year ahead keep coming out earlier every year. At least this year analysts have something substantive to sink their intellectual teeth into: the impact of incoming president Donald Trump. The results are fascinating — especially for bonds. The fixed income market has been one of the biggest victims in the “Trumpflation trade” that […]
For months we’ve been warning that real estate markets in NYC and San Francisco, among others, are getting ready to rollover as the market is about to be flooded with new supply of luxury apartments (see here and here). Real estate in both markets are just starting to show signs of cracking as the apartments sales cycle is getting stretched out and pricing growth has stalled. Now, […]
By Isla Binnie | ROME ROME European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is convinced the fall of rebel-held areas of Aleppo to the government would not end the war in Syria, she said on Saturday. “I’m convinced the fall of Aleppo will not end the war,” Mogherini said during a panel discussion at a conference in Rome war with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura. Syrian […]
Opec’s production cut this week to bolster oil prices may strike many as a throwback to an earlier era, but it hinged on a very modern method of communication: a messaging group between the smartphones of Saudi Arabia’s delegation in Vienna and Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud. For a royal priding himself on being a tech savvy moderniser in the kingdom, the use of a popular encrypted messaging service may […]
Businesses operating in GCC countries should brace themselves for further government action to raise non-oil revenues, according to a new ICAEW report. The accountancy and finance body said that given the weak outlook for oil prices, imposing tax measures, along with subsidy reforms, spending cuts, and a freeze on public sector recruitment and pay, will help to close the fiscal gap. Its Economic Insight: Middle East Q4 […]
DirecTV Now reestablishes the channel paradigm in a system built for apps Graduations are often accompanied by proclamations. Such was the case for Apple TV when Apple’s former hobby became a full-fledged OS vessel as Tim Cook proclaimed, “the future of TV is apps.” The prediction invited skepticism for many reasons. A year earlier, Google had made its own run at app TV with Android TV, which […]
Europe’s financial markets are bracing for Italy to reject the government’s constitutional reforms in Sunday’s referendum, with investors warning that an emphatic No vote risks a sharp sell-off in Italian assets. Although there has not been panic ahead of the vote, there are signs of some nerves among money managers and traders whose attention in recent weeks has been dominated by the reflation trade unleashed by Donald […]
At a conference on investing in non-performing loans in Milan last week, attendees were asked to vote on whether an Italian government scheme to help sell the debt was the “best way forward”. Just 3 per cent agreed. The response follows a year of wrangling over proposals to tackle the €360bn of problematic loans plaguing the balance sheets of Italian banks, which have lost half their stock […]
Donald Trump has named Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone, as chairman of a new council of strategic advisers, capping a week that has seen Wall Street veterans installed at the heart of the incoming US administration. The president’s strategic and policy forum, which will meet for the first time in February, also includes JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, founder of BlackRock, among […]
Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke. During the past year, the Chinese yuan (CNY) has shed a bit more than 7 percent of its value against the greenback. That’s only one aspect of the CNY’s weakness. Another concerns the quality of the CNY. As Jerry Jordan pointed out recently at the Cato Institute’s 34th Annual Monetary Conference, a […]
The notion of machine-powered facial recognition is one that predates today’s actual technology for it by many years, thanks to robot POV shots from sci-fi films such as The Terminator and Robocop. But while many advances have been made, facial recognition software is far from infallible, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University recently found. Here are the details from a report in Quartz: Researchers showed they could […]
When Dala Farouki Kakos was a child, her parents invested in three Syrian chests, with matching mirrors, in the traditional sadaf style – on the understanding that they would be passed on to Kakos and her two siblings once they were grown up and had homes of their own. Beautifully embellished with mother of pearl, Kakos’s set has accompanied her on her travels around the world, and […]
December 2, 2016 by: Mamta Badkar in New York The US economy added 178,000 jobs in November while the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2007, suggesting the US Federal Reserve is on track to raise interest rates this month. The jobs tally was just shy of economists’ expectations for 180,000. That compared to the 142,000 jobs it created in October. While the data showed […]
Pérez made it clear that Benítez was safe as long as he picked what the president felt was his strongest team: an adventurous lineup that included the Colombian midfielder James Rodríguez. Such a selection ran against Benítez’s cautious instincts. He would have preferred the more defensively minded Brazilian Casemiro as a bulwark against Barcelona’s formidable attack, but eventually Benítez relented. Continue reading the main story Rodríguez started; […]
By Matthias Inverardi and Harro Ten Wolde | FRANKFURT FRANKFURT Aixtron (AIXGn.DE) will have to take action to balance income and costs, including potential job cuts, if U.S. President Barack Obama blocks its takeover by China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund (FGC). Shares in the German semiconductor equipment maker fell more than 5 percent on Friday following a report by Bloomberg, citing sources, that said Obama was […]
Good morning. Here’s our daily summary of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. Since Jim VandeHei and John Harris proved most everybody to be idiots, VandeHei can only hope that reflexive suspicion of his new gambit again proves to be entrepreneurial bliss. The two journalists famously pitched the notion of an all-politics digital […]
By Gavin Jones | ROME ROME With his political career on the line, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a final day of campaigning on Friday ahead of a Dec. 4 referendum, saying Italy would be the strongest nation in Europe if he wins. Financial markets and Europe’s politicians fear victory for the opposition ‘No’ camp could trigger political instability and renewed turmoil for Italy’s battered banks, pushing […]
By Terray Sylvester and Alicia Underlee Nelson | CANNON BALL/WEST FARGO, N.D. CANNON BALL/WEST FARGO, N.D. More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans are expected to join a protest at a camp in North Dakota on Friday where thousands of activists, braving frigid conditions, are demonstrating against a pipeline project near a Native American reservation. Veterans Stand for Standing Rock will spend the day building a barracks at […]
A head of steam for Italian government bond yields. There are no signs of jitters in the eurozone’s third largest debt market this morning in the last day of trading before the country votes in a closely-watched referendum this weekend. Italy’s 10-year bond yields have fallen by as much as 10 basis points this morning (0.1 percentage points) to 1.95 per cent, outperforming a wider rally in […]
Since the Maltese Parliament and government have not taken concrete action on tax avoidance and evasion, even in light of the Panama affair, Alternattiva Demokratika said it hopes that EP inquiry will shed light where others have failed. Alternattiva Demokratika Chairperson, Prof. Arnold Cassola, said: “The European Parliament administration yesterday approved the request from the ‘Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — At least 200,000 conservative Muslims rallied peacefully in the Indonesian capital on Friday in the second major protest against its minority Christian governor, who is being prosecuted for alleged blasphemy. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, a political ally of the governor who angered hard-liners by being out of the city during their first protest, unexpectedly went to the national monument to join Friday prayers […]
In late July, Moussa Aksar, the director of Niger’s L’Évènement newspaper, answered his phone and heard a familiar voice warning him that he was, once again, in danger. “Be careful,” a friendly source told Aksar. “Look out for yourself and be careful what you say on the phone.” Aksar had just published Niger’s first exposé from the Panama Papers, the investigation based on a leak of documents […]
