FRANKFURT China’s Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund has dropped its takeover bid for German chip equipment maker Aixtron after U.S. President Barack Obama blocked the deal. Fujian’s takeover vehicle Grand Chip Investment said on Thursday its offer had lapsed as it had failed to obtain U.S. regulatory approval for the purchase, which had been a condition of the deal. Investors who had already accepted its takeover offer […]
The European Central Bank has decided to scale back its landmark quantitive easing programme from €80bn to €60bn a month, in a move that responds to hawks’ concerns about ultra-loose monetary policy but which could unsettle markets. The bank confirmed that it would buy €80bn a month of bonds under the current leg of the programme until March, but added that it would reduce the purchase size […]
By Ginger Gibson | WASHINGTON WASHINGTON The chances that the federal government could hand off the U.S. air traffic control system to private management are increasing, say advocates who report they are getting supportive feedback from President-elect Donald Trump and his team. U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, who chairs the House of Representatives Transportation Committee, has met with Trump and incoming Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to make his […]
The UK’s National Grid has agreed to sell a 61 per cent stake in its gas distribution network to a consortium of global investors, a deal that will plug the 11m homes the network serves into investors such as China’s sovereign wealth fund and Australian investment bank Macquarie. The terms of the transaction imply an enterprise value for the division of around £13.8bn including debt. The investment […]
By Ju-min Park and Jack Kim | SEOUL SEOUL South Korea’s parliament introduced a bill on Thursday to impeach President Park Geun-hye, setting the stage for a historic vote to oust the embattled leader engulfed in an influence-peddling scandal. Parliament is expected to vote on Friday in favour of impeachment, although the Constitutional Court must decide whether to uphold the motion, a process that could take up […]
The Singapore Exchange was hit by its second disruption this year with the start of trading in some derivatives contracts delayed by over two hours on Thursday morning. It is the latest in a series of technical failures that have become an increasing source of embarrassment in one of Asia’s main financial centres. Most recently, SGX in July halted trading on its securities market for five hours […]
SYDNEY Asian shares hustled to one-month highs on Thursday after Wall Street strode to another record, while bonds rallied on wagers the European Central Bank would extend its stimulus campaign at a policy meeting later in the session. Risk appetite got an extra boost when China reported upbeat trade figures with exports and imports both beating forecasts. Resource imports were very strong, a major reason prices for […]
By Anthony Boadle | BRASILIA BRASILIA Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned an injunction that ordered the indicted head of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, to step down, voting to allow him to continue in the post but not in the presidential line of succession. The 6-3 ruling defuses a clash between the top court and the Senate that threatened to derail spending cuts at the centre of […]
By Coco Liu HONG KONG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Philippines is not doing enough to tackle soaring HIV prevalence among men who have sex with men by offering greater access to HIV testing and condoms, an international rights group said on Thursday. The prevalence of HIV among men who have sex with men in the Southeast Asian country has increased tenfold over the last five years, […]
MOSCOW — The Russian government announced Wednesday that it will sell nearly 20 percent of its state oil company, Rosneft, to the Swiss commodity trading firm Glencore and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar. The deal defies expectations that no investor would dare buy a share in the Russian asset, given Western sanctions against the government of President Vladimir V. Putin. But the emergence of foreign money […]
Blackrock’s chief multi-asset strategist summed up tomorrow’s anxiously awaited ECB meeting best by noting that “what’s priced into markets is a fully fledged extension of the [bond-buying] program,” but warns that, thanks to a muted reaction to the Italy vote and recent encouraging data, “there’s a significant chance the ECB disappoints markets.” As bond traders bet on a six-month QE extension, Citi warns, anything less will be […]
The UK investigation into October’s “flash crash” in sterling has focused heavily on the Japanese trading operations of Citigroup, which fired off repeated sell orders that exacerbated the pound’s fall, according to bankers and officials involved in the inquiry. Citi’s traders are not believed to have started the slide in the currency in thin Asia trading but its Tokyo desk played a key role in sending the […]
At the end of last month it was reported that names and telephone numbers of suspects in terrorism probes carried out by the EU police agency, Europol, had been posted online by accident. The Hague-based agency, which coordinates police efforts across the EU confirmed that an ex-staff member had taken the data home in contravention of security protocols. The concerned former staff member, who is an experienced […]
News stories are released on weekdays. 2 hours ago Vatican confirms ban on homosexual candidates for priesthood The Vatican has confirmed that homosexual men should not be ordained to the priesthood. In a new instruction for the training of seminarians, entitled The Gift of the Priestly Vocation, the Congregation for the Clergy says that the Church “cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those […]
This article by David Haggith was published first on The Great Recession Blog: I risked losing my fellow anti-establishment readers in September by suggesting Trump may be an establishment Trojan horse. After seeing Trump choose Pence as VP and a Goldman Sachs exec as campaign finance manager, I was concerned the establishment knew a citizen’s revolt was brewing and made sure that even the road to revolt led back to […]
Alcohol intake is associated with higher rates of developing cancer, among white men and women. As part of the association, white wine was the most obvious correlation. The study, published in the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, suggested that nearly 3.6 percent of cancer cases around the globe can be associated with alcohol, especially the ones of the aerodigestive tract, […]
BERLIN Germany urged Israel in unusually strong language on Wednesday to scrap legislation that would legalise Israeli settlement homes built on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, saying this would break international law. Germany tends to be more reserved than other European nations in its criticism of Israel due to the legacy of the Nazi Holocaust, but it has objected in the past few years […]
Holly Russell, former graduate student in the Dynamic Design Lab, is lead author of a new study on the handover of control from an autonomous car to a human driver. She is shown in Stanford’s X1 experimental vehicle. Credit: Steve Castillo There you are, cruising down the freeway, listening to some tunes and enjoying the view as your autonomous car zips and swerves through traffic. Then the […]
Will this truck be the eyes and ears of the smart city? Credit: USPS The future of the U.S. Postal Service could be as the eyes, ears and sensor network for the smart city. If cities played along the USPS could also derive a revenue stream that could reverse billions of dollars of annual losses. According to a panel at the Smart Cities Summit in Boston, the […]
This is part of a series on the global rise of exchange traded funds Have we reached Peak ETF? And are we therefore at last in a “stockpicker’s market” where active fund managers skilled in bottom-up stock selection can feast on the mispricings and anomalies that the herd of exchange traded funds have left in their wake? It is beguiling to think that this could have happened. […]
Submitted by Daniel Cloud “Donald Trump is either too incompetent to understand that his foolish phone call threatens our national security, or he’s doing it deliberately because he reportedly wants to build hotels in Taiwan to pad his own pockets.” – (Democratic National Committee Spokesperson) Is that true? Did “incompetent” President-Elect Donald Trump’s “foolish” telephone conversation with Taiwan’s President Cai Yingwen actually “threaten American’s […]
Expansion will help ensure Abu Dhabi’s rising demand for gas is met sustainably and economically 07 December 2016 Abu Dhabi, UAE – Plans to expand the Al Hosn Shah Gas plant’s capacity by 50 per cent have come one step closer today, with the awarding of the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) Services contract, to Britain’s Amec Foster Wheeler. One of the key players in the GCC […]
As its ADSL business is replaced by the NBN and the cost of offering services to consumers moves from AU$15 to AU$40, thanks to the NBN’s connectivity virtual circuit charge, Australian telco TPG will look to increase its number of on-net users to make up the margin shortfall. Speaking at its annual general meeting on Wednesday, TPG chief financial officer Stephen Banfield said the company had a […]
Picture it: rumours of a renminbi devaluation keep growing. Residents rush to open accounts offshore as experts warn Beijing will get off on the wrong foot with a relatively new US administration if a big depreciation happens. Official denials are made regularly — until a devaluation of about 50 per cent follows in short order. That was China in 1994. Today the idea of a similarly brutal, […]
