News Archive - 30 August 2016

(Chabahar route towards Kabul and Mumbai. Source: Daily Mail)   On Sunday, Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani arrived in Tehran to discuss issues of common interest with counterpart Mohammad-Javad Zarif and Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, Press TV reported.   At the top of Rabbani’s agenda...

>Hong Kong Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) global Audi sales chief said on Wednesday that talks with U.S. authorities over large-engined diesel cars found to have cheated emissions tests are progressing well and a technical and financial settlement could be agreed as soon as October. "(We're) in really good discussions...

>From Wednesday, British Amazon Prime customers will be able to order supplies of products such as toilet paper, dishwasher tablets, dog food and coffee at the touch of the wifi-connected Amazon Dash button.Each device is dedicated to a single product -- toilet roll, for instance -- with the brand's...

>EVERETT, Washington Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday night called Democrats the "party of slavery" and praised what he called the millions of African Americans with career success, as he tries to revamp his outreach to minority voters.Trump has made much-maligned efforts to appeal to black and Hispanic voters, groups...

>SEOUL North Korea has made considerable progress this year on weapons technology, including testing a submarine-launched missile for the first time, but it's still not clear if the isolated nation has developed a nuclear warhead.It also does not yet have a fleet of submarines that can launch the newly...

>The possible trip was first reported by the Washington Post, which said talks between the Trump campaign and Mexican officials were ongoing, but logistics and security concerns were still being sorted out.Peña Nieto had invited Trump to visit Mexico and the Republican's campaign decided over the weekend to accept...

>SINGAPORE Crude oil futures fell in early trade on Wednesday as the U.S. dollar held around three-week highs and industry stocks data indicated a build in U.S. crude inventories. International Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were trading at $48.27 (36.9025 pounds) per barrel at 0052 GMT,...

>The newspaper projected that Wasserman Schultz defeated Tim Canova, a law professor who is an outspoken Wall Street critic. He is aligned with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost the Democratic presidential nomination to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Peter Cooney)...

>MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.1 percent as traders awaited Friday's job report, but looked set for a near 2 percent gain in August.Japan's Nikkei stock index .N225 added 0.9 percent, poised to rise 1.8 percent for the month, as...

>Rubio was projected to win the party nominating contest in Florida over novice politician Carlos Beruff, a wealthy homebuilder. Rubio could face Democratic U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, who was expected to win his party's nominating contest, in the Nov. 8 election. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Peter Cooney)...

>TOKYO Growth in Japan's industrial output ground to a halt in July after June's gains, underscoring the fragility of factory activity - a continuing challenge to policymakers grappling with a stalling economy.The flat reading compared with economists' median estimate in a Reuters poll of a 0.8 percent increase,...

>SWIFT, the global financial messaging system, on Tuesday disclosed new hacking attacks on its member banks as it pressured them to comply with security procedures instituted after February's high-profile $81 million heist at Bangladesh Bank.In a private letter to clients, SWIFT said that new cyber-theft attempts - some of...

>WASHINGTON Democrat Elizabeth Warren and 19 other U.S. senators voiced concern to the chief executive of Mylan NV (MYL.O) about the high cost of its EpiPen on Tuesday, calling the device used in the case of life-threatening allergies "exorbitantly expensive."Mylan has been under fire for steadily raising...

>White House National Security Council adviser Christina Segal-Knowles told a news conference ahead of the Sept. 4-5 G20 summit in China that talks on a trade pact with Europe were still in progress, despite comments from France and Germany that they were in doubt. The Asian talks are stalled in...

>NEW DELHI India will release data later on Wednesday that is expected to show economic growth slowed in the June quarter, and despite having one of the world's fastest growth rates it means millions of unemployed Indians will face an even longer line for a job.Having got up to...

>The move follows a decision last year to reorganize the company hit by low demand for nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in Japan 2011. As part of a restructuring, under which 87 percent state-owned Areva will sell its nuclear reactor unit to utility EDF (EDF.PA), Areva was expected...

>EVERETT, Washington/WASHINGTON Republican Donald Trump, who has made his criticism of a pending Pacific trade agreement central to his campaign, on Tuesday was to visit a Seattle suburb that is home to a large Boeing Co plane manufacturing facility that depends heavily on sales to Asian markets.Trump's campaign has...

>STAVANGER, Norway The sale of a stake in Carcara, the giant Brazilian offshore oil prospect, to Norway's Statoil ASA (STL.OL) will gain Brazil's state-led oil company Petrobras as much as $11 billion to pay debt or invest in other projects that promise to generate cash more quickly, Petrobras' chief...

>Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management LLC is exploring a sale of Aptean Inc, hoping a deal will value the U.S. business software company at more than $1 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.A sale of Aptean would underscore the popularity of companies...

>Google in May launched a pilot program around its California headquarters which allowed several thousand area workers at specific firms to carpool together with users of its Wave navigation app, according to the WSJ report. (on.wsj.com/2bzJrcN0) Alphabet executive David Drummond on Monday resigned from Uber's board due to...

>Twitter, Facebook Inc, Snapchat and YouTube are all competing to keep or recruit top video talent as they seek to cash in on the wave of televison-style advertising that has been moving to the internet.Twitter already offers revenue sharing to media and entertainment companies such as CBS Corp and...

>BEIRUT/ANKARA/WASHINGTON The United States welcomed an apparent pause in fighting between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish militia fighters in Syria on Tuesday, both of them members of the coalition fighting Islamic State, but it was far from clear that any truce would hold.Washington has been alarmed by NATO ally Turkey's...

>UNITED NATIONS The U.N. Security Council began talks on Tuesday on whether to impose sanctions on people or entities linked to two chlorine gas attacks on civilians that the United Nations and the global chemical weapons watchdog blamed on the Syrian government.A year-long U.N. and Organization for...

>Obama has now granted a total of 673 commutations during his presidency as he seeks to reform the criminal justice system, it said. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)...

>SAO PAULO L Catterton, the world's biggest consumer-focused buyout firm, is in talks to buy a controlling stake in Brazilian high-end supermarket chain St Marché, which took on too much debt following an aggressive expansion, three people with direct knowledge of the talks said.According to the people, five St...

>A former Monsanto Co (MON.N) executive who tipped the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to accounting improprieties involving the company's top-selling Roundup product has been awarded more than $22 million from the agency's whistleblower program, the executive's lawyer said on Tuesday. The $22 million award - the agency's...

> Jones will be responsible for Uber's operations, marketing and customer support globally. (ubr.to/2cclIj5) Target said Jones would leave effective Sept. 9. (Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)...

>MADRID/FRANKFURT Siemens (SIEGn.DE) and Gamesa (GAM.MC) have rejected a non-binding offer from General Electric (GE.N) for assets belonging to a wind power venture between Gamesa and Areva (AREVA.PA), sources close to the talks told Reuters on Tuesday. Spain's Gamesa is merging with Siemen's wind power division...

>"We are with freezing production at the OPEC meeting," he said, in the clearest indication yet about the position Iraq will support when the oil exporters' group meets next month. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are due to meet informally in Algeria on the sidelines of...

>WASHINGTON A European Commission order requiring Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to pay $13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in taxes on Tuesday drew swift and angry rebukes from the Obama administration and lawmakers in Congress, while re-igniting calls for international tax reform.The U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces federal...

>"The idea is to reduce the size of the capital hike to around 3 billion euros," one of the sources said. A second source said cutting the size of the cash call to 3 billion euros would be a best-case scenario, implying the bank could raise 2 billion euros from...

> However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will not yet release other notes from the law enforcement agency's interviews with Clinton aides or turn over other investigative material, CNN said, citing unnamed sources. (Reporting by Julia Edwards and David Alexander; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)...

>Canadian fertilizer companies Agrium Inc and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc are in talks to merge, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, in what would be a tie-up of the world's biggest crop nutrient company by capacity and North America's largest farm retailer.U.S.-listed shares of Potash and Agrium rocketed...

>LONDON Royal Dutch Shell's first oil field sale after its $54 billion BG Group acquisition bodes well for its disposal talks in the North Sea, Gabon and New Zealand, according to sources, signaling buyers will meet its expectations on value.The $425 million deal in the Gulf of Mexico is...

>"The prospect of a hostile government actively seeking to undermine our free and fair elections represents one of the gravest threats to our democracy since the Cold War," Reid said in a letter to FBI Director James Comey."It is critical for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use every...

>Total credits increased 1.5 percent, $241 billion, in the second quarter driven largely by new home loans and real estate credits, the regulator said on Tuesday. Credit card balances and loans to non-banks also increased. "Income and revenue both increased from a year ago," FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said...

>While Google is the front-runner, the online payments processor is evaluating the other providers and hasn't made any decision yet, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter. (cnb.cx/2bGbowT)However, PayPal may not move its technology infrastructure in the fourth quarter, the peak period for online commerce, CNBC said.PayPal...

>LONDON Shareholders in British technology company ARM approved its sale to Japan's SoftBank on Tuesday, marking the end of independence for the chip designer that powered the smartphone revolution.SoftBank swooped on the Apple supplier in July, agreeing to pay $32 billion in cash for a company that it hopes...

>MILAN Surging data traffic and a push to merge capital-intensive networks to cut costs are swelling the value of Europe's mobile infrastructure as it is gradually split away from the telecom industry that built it. The companies that operate cellular phone masts make most of their money renting antenna space...

>MUNCIE, Indiana One night a month, retired auto workers shuffle into a former elementary school classroom here to discuss their legal fight against the company that cancelled their health care benefits seven years ago.But the conversation often turns quickly to presidential politics."It can get pretty heated,” says Gerald...

>Wall Street was little changed on Tuesday morning as investors looked for catalysts to drive the markets while keeping one eye on clues for the timing of the next interest rate hike. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen painted a rosy picture of the U.S. economy at an economic symposium...

>The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas rose 5.1 percent in June on a year-over-year basis, retreating from the 5.3 percent climb in the prior month and short of the estimate calling for a 5.2 percent increase from a Reuters poll of economists."Overall,...

>TOKYO Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T) said on Tuesday more of its vehicle models were involved in a mileage cheating scandal than initially stated, and that it would temporarily stop domestic sales of affected vehicles and compensate owners.Earlier in the day, Japan's transport ministry said its investigation had shown...

>The profit in the six-month period ended June 30 rose to 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) from 7.8 billion yuan in the year-ago period, according to a company statement filed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday.The company's investment income increased 26.2 percent to 10.

>Luxembourg-based LetterOne (L1) said on Tuesday it had received national security clearance from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to complete the $50 million investment.FreedomPop announced the investment earlier this year but did not reveal the identity of the investor.FreedomPop, founded five...

>BRUSSELS Economic sentiment in the 19 countries sharing the euro fell in August to its lowest level since March, a further indication that morale is weakening after Britain voted to leave the European Union.The European Commission's euro zone Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) fell to 103.5 in August from...

>In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Fischer did not comment on the timing of the next Fed rate hike but said "we choose the pace on basis of data," and that U.S. "employment is very close to full employment."Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Friday she thought the...

>BISHKEK A suspected suicide car bomber rammed the gates of the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek on Tuesday, killing the attacker and wounding at least three other people, officials said.An Interior Ministry spokesman said the car exploded inside the compound and quoted Deputy Prime Minister Janysh Razakov...

> (Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Writing by Elias Glenn; Editing by Nick Macfie)...

>NEW YORK Six U.S. senators have urged President Barack Obama to prioritize cyber crime at this weekend's Group of 20 summit in China, in the wake of the theft of $81 million from Bangladesh's central bank, according to a letter obtained by Reuters.In the letter sent to the...

>NEW YORKSome U.S. private equity firms are courting their biggest and savviest investors with privileged access to special fee-saving deals without telling other investors, according to people involved in buyout firms' fundraising.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has signaled its interest in overseeing such deals after...

>BEIRUT/WASHINGTON Islamic State spokesman and head of external operations Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, one of the jihadist group's longest-serving and most prominent leaders, has been killed in Aleppo province in Syria, it said on Tuesday.Adnani had been one of the last remaining members alive of the group that founded Islamic...

>SEOUL South Korea will focus on creating more jobs and increase spending modestly next year, while seeking out new sources of economic growth, the finance ministry said on Tuesday as it unveiled its draft 2017 budget.Budgeted spending will increase 3.7 percent to 400.7 trillion won ($358.54...

>Matthias Fekl said he would request a halt to negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on behalf of France at next month's meeting of European Union trade ministers in Bratislava."There should be an absolute clear end so that we can restart them on good basis," he...

>WASHINGTON Republican voters in Arizona and Florida are expected to pick Senators John McCain and Marco Rubio as their respective U.S. Senate nominees when they go to the polls on Tuesday, but one name not on either ballot, Donald Trump, looms large.The Republican presidential nominee has endorsed both...

>WELLINGTON A New Zealand judge gave permission on Tuesday for the hearing of German tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom's appeal against his extradition to be streamed on YouTube, making it the country's first court case to be broadcast on the Internet.The six-week hearing opened in Auckland this week, nine months...

>NEW DELHI U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker began two days of talks on Tuesday with the Indian government to boost business ties, and to encourage dialogue with Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir.Kerry arrived in New Delhi on Monday night for...