Monte dei Paschi di Siena has gained stock market approval to extend a voluntary debt-for-equity swap to retail investors, a key part of the Italian bank’s attempt to raise €5bn in fresh capital before Christmas and stave off a state rescue. The last-gasp attempt by the world’s oldest surviving lender comes as regulators and the bank have revealed that long running crisis at MPS is taking a […]
The Volcani Center, the Ministry of Agriculture’s research organization, is building a national institute for medical marijuana research. The chief scientist’s office of the Ministry of Economy has infused millions of shekels into innovative marijuana companies, much as government investment helped fuel the Israeli tech boom in the 1990s. The government is also setting standards for the cultivation, storage and use of medical marijuana. Continue reading the […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continued to take jabs at China on Twitter on Saturday after Beijing agreed to give back an underwater U.S. drone it seized this week. “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back – let them keep it!” Trump tweeted. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Paul Simao) ‘); $(‘.second-article-divide’).append($(‘.slider.slider-module’)); $(‘.third-article-divide’).append(”); var median = (relatedItemsTotal / 2); var […]
A few days ago we wrote about the Harvard Professor, Larry Lessig, who was offering free legal services to any Republican elector willing to consider switching their vote from Trump to any other candidate when the electoral college meets on December 19th (see “Harvard Professor Says He’s Rallied Nearly Enough GOP Electors To Block Trump“). At the time, Lessig said he was in active discussions with […]
It was a clear and chilly afternoon in Moscow – March 18, 2014 – when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the documents to formally annex the Crimean Peninsula away from Ukraine. Frustrated Western governments soon began rolling out the only response they could agree on to Mr. Putin’s brazen redrawing of Europe’s borders: economic sanctions. Over the next two days, the United States would designate 27 individuals […]
LONDON Scotland will publish proposals this week for how it can remain in the European single market after Britain leaves the European Union in order to avoid the “national disaster” of a “hard Brexit”, the Scottish government said on Sunday. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal process of leaving the EU, by the end of […]
ATHENS Greece’s decision to give pensioners a one-off bonus has delayed the conclusion of its second bailout review but an agreement can still be reached in the coming months, EU Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis was quoted as saying on Saturday. Greece angered its lenders this month by announcing it would spend about 600 million euros on a Christmas bonus for low income pensioners after beating its fiscal […]
As millions of children around the world drag their parents to shopping malls to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him their wishes, hardly anyone is coming to Demre. Turkey has an abundance of problems — frequent terror attacks, a swelling population of Syrian refugees, mass arrests after a failed coup — that have driven tourists away. The only foreign visitors to Demre these days seem to […]
By Pawel Florkiewicz and Lidia Kelly | WARSAW WARSAW Polish opposition leaders called on Saturday for days of anti-government protests and vowed to maintain a blockade of parliament’s main hall that the ruling party condemned as an illegal attempt to seize power. About two dozen members of the opposition Civic Platform (PO) took turns to sit in the legislature’s plenary hall through the night and the party’s […]
PARIS French telecoms boss Stephane Richard was sharply criticized by one of the judges and by a witness during the negligence trial of IMF chief Christine Lagarde in Paris this week. Richard, the chief executive of Orange (ORAN.PA), is a target of investigators in a related inquiry which has yet to conclude. He was Lagarde’s chief of staff when, as French finance minister, she approved a payout […]
When the first commercial solar photovoltaic panel was unveiled in 1954, it was only capable of converting into electricity six per cent of the Sun’s light. Efficiency has increased since then, making solar a viable option for homes and power plants alike. The gains started plateauing in the 1990s and today’s panels, which convert about a quarter of the sunlight they capture into electricity, are only slightly […]
By MacDonald Dzirutwe | MASVINGO, Zimbabwe MASVINGO, Zimbabwe Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was confirmed on Saturday as his party’s sole candidate for the next presidential election in 2018, when he will be 94. Supporters at a party conference sang a song titled “Mugabe should rule until eternity” as the veteran leader rose to give a speech in which he called for an end to infighting within the […]
In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2016, an Uber driverless car heads out for a test drive in San Francisco. Uber is bringing a small number of self-driving cars to its ride-hailing service in San Francisco – a move likely to both excite the city’s tech-savvy population and spark a conflict with California regulators. The Wednesday, Dec. 14, launch in Uber’s hometown expands a public pilot […]
By Jonathan Barrett and Harry Pearl | SYDNEY SYDNEY People living along Papua New Guinea’s coastline fled to higher ground on Saturday after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck east of the Pacific nation, triggering a tsunami warning for parts of its archipelago. A couple of hours after the quake, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) said the threat had largely passed, although it said government agencies should […]
The smart home is gaining ground, but it’s still a muddle of confusing standards, competing platforms, and gadgets that don’t do what you might expect. But the promise of products that can make your life a little easier is hard to resist, so I’m here to answer the inevitable questions that arise. Whether it’s figuring out the best connected door lock to assembling the right […]
Wherever she travels, Christine Lagarde receives head of state treatment. But back home in Paris this week, in the chamber where Marie-Antoinette was sentenced to death by guillotine during the French Revolution, the chief of the International Monetary Fund faced unimpressed judges and uncompromising former colleagues. For five days in the small, wood-panelled room, she gave evidence and listened to damning testimonies that pointed to her alleged […]
The arctic air that has chilled large swaths of the northern United States for days will culminate this weekend with dangerous cold in Montana and North Dakota as heavy snow falls in other parts of the country, officials said. People in North Dakota face “life threatening cold” and the risk of frostbite with exposure of 10 minutes or less, the National Weather Service (NWS) said in an […]
By Chuck Mikolajczak | NEW YORK NEW YORK Benchmark U.S. stock index rallies, in anticipation of fiscal stimulus measures by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, could also be laying the seeds for equity market troubles from a stronger dollar and rising bond yields. The S&P 500 stock index .SPX has surged over 8 percent since the Nov. 8 election, due in large part to sectors […]
ABU DHABI // Before becoming Europe’s No 1 ethical hacker, Jamie Woodruff took advantage of his autism to become a computer boffin and started hacking when he was nine. In discussing with young people how challenges can be turned to opportunities, Mr Woodruff, 23, showed how he overcame autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia. “I did not have access to education sectors that you would see. When I went to […]
Wells Fargo has said the number of customers opening accounts has dropped sharply for a third consecutive month — underlining the scale of the fallout from the recent scandal over its sales tactics. Customers opened 41 per cent fewer Wells Fargo current accounts in November than they did a year ago and made 45 per cent fewer credit card applications. These figures cap another difficult week for […]
Where there was discord, Donald Trump has remarkably brought harmony. He has brought peace between the markets and Janet Yellen, as traders at last appear to believe her forecast for interest rates over the next year. The Federal Reserve says it intends to raise rates three times next year, and the market implicitly, through Fed Funds futures, puts the chance of this happening at almost exactly 50 […]
CAIRO: Growing up in Egypt, Mina and other Copts remember all too well the anti-Christian slurs they used to hear at school and on the street.Once, while playing football, a Muslim youth snatched Mina’s necklace and crucifix and stomped on it.“I won’t forget that day,” said Mina, now in his 30s.Egypt is now trying to come to terms with the kind of religious bigotry behind a December […]
Submitted by Duane via Free Market Shooter blog, On Thursday, December 1st, Yasmin Seweid was allegedly assaulted by Trump supporters in NYC. According to BuzzFeed and the NY Daily News, the attack took place at the uptown 6 train stop at 23rd Street in midtown Manhattan. The assaliants allegedly called Seweid a terrorist, broke her bag strap, followed her when she tried to get away from them, […]
Image: ZDNet [This article has been updated several times since its initial publication to incorporate changes in Windows 10. Last updated: December 16, 2016] Over the past year, I’ve read countless “privacy guides” for Windows 10. Most are well-intentioned, but they invariably take a simplistic approach to privacy: Just turn off every switch in the Privacy section of the Settings app. If you do that, you’re not […]
