News Archive - 31 May 2015

>Bermuda-based reinsurers PartnerRe Ltd (PRE.N) and Axis Capital Holdings Ltd (AXS.N) are embarking on a public campaign this week to convince shareholders of the merits of their $13 billion merger, with their top executives leading the charge.   Exor SpA (EXOR.MI), the investment vehicle of Italy's Agnelli...

>Cloud computing is the company's fastest-growing segment, with revenue increasing at about 60-70 percent a year, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told reporters a day before Computex, Asia's largest technology trade show, opens in Taipei.Nvidia makes chips for computing and gaming graphics, known as GPU, or graphical processing units. It has...

>Since taking over from her father and becoming head of the National Front, Marine Le Pen has sought to rid the party of its anti-Semitic image and position it as an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic force offering protectionist policies to shelter France from globalization.Le Pen arrived in Egypt last week for...

>"We will need progress at the working group level, in order that we can agree on a reform agenda, perhaps even by the end of the week, which would trigger the payment of the last tranche of aid from the current aid program," Oettinger told Die Welt newspaper in an...

>SHANGHAI China's economic policymakers clearly didn't consult mother-of-one Chen Xuejun when they decided to try stimulating consumer demand by slashing import tariffs on sneakers to skincare.The 28-year-old speaks for many Chinese shoppers when she says the move last week won't make her shift her purchases back home from overseas,...

>The company intends to issue 3.891 billion shares at 3.39 yuan a piece, and will start taking subscriptions from investors on Tuesday, according to a prospectus published on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.CNNPC is the largest of the 23 companies that will kick off initial public offerings this...

>The Chinese government aggressively censors the Internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability, including popular Western sites like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, as well as Google Inc's main search engine and Gmail service.Police in some 50 areas, from metropolises...

>WASHINGTON The legal authority for U.S. spy agencies' collection of Americans' phone records and other data was set to expire at midnight on Sunday after the U.S. Senate failed to pass legislation extending the controversial powers.After debate pitting Americans' distrust of intrusive government against fears of terrorist...

>NEW DELHI Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reformist, but hard-up government has begun a splurge on road and rail building that analysts say could remove doubts over whether economic growth in India really is overtaking China.Having roughly doubled spending allocations for roads and bridges in fiscal 2015/16, and raised the...

>The Markit/JMMA final Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to a seasonally adjusted 50.9 in May, unchanged from the preliminary reading but higher than a final 49.9 in April.The index returned above the 50 threshold that separates contraction from expansion for the first time in two...

>SYDNEY The euro was on the defensive early on Monday after Greece missed a self-imposed Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement with its lenders to unlock aid, keeping alive fears of a debt default.The euro eased 0.4 percent to $1.0954, retreating from Friday's high of $1.1006.

>TOKYO Asian shares slipped on Monday after separate surveys of Chinese factory activity failed to banish concerns about a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.Persistent fears about Greece's financial situation and downbeat U.S. data also sapped investors' confidence.The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged up to...

>A similar survey on the services sector showed activity cooled to its slowest rate in over five years, reinforcing views that authorities will have to roll out more stimulus in coming months.The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged up to 50.2 from April's 50.1, the National...

>Beau Biden, 46, who served eight years as attorney general of Delaware, died on Saturday after a recurrence of brain cancer.Obama and his wife, Michelle, went to the U.S. Naval Observatory, the vice president's official residence, to offer their condolences to the Biden family.The Obamas had been...

>YORKVILLE, Ill. The Christian liberal arts college in Illinois where former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert graduated removed his name from its policy center on Sunday, as his hometown struggled to digest news of criminal charges that could destroy a local hero's reputation or worse. The decision by Wheaton...

>XPO Logistics Inc will raise $3.26 billion through new equity and debt, partly to fund acquisitions, according to people familiar with the matter, just one month after a $3.53 billion deal to buy France's Norbert Dentressangle SA.The capital raising underscores XPO's appetite for more mergers and acquisitions...

>WASHINGTON Republican Jeb Bush, calling President Barack Obama's handling of the Islamic State a failure, said the United States should embed some U.S. troops with Iraqi forces to train them and identify targets.The expected Republican presidential candidate, in an interview to be aired Sunday on CBS's "Face the...

>A $100,000 check is waiting for a mystery woman who donated a rare Apple 1 computer to a Silicon Valley recycling firm.CleanBayArea in Milpitas, California, is trying to track down a woman in her 60s who dropped off some electronic goods in April, when she was cleaning out the...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate is set to convene in a rare Sunday session in a last-ditch attempt to pass legislation to allow U.S. spy agencies to continue to sweep up information on Americans’ telephone calls and other business records.    Failure to pass such legislation would mean that...

>VIENNA OPEC is likely to keep its output target unchanged when it meets on Friday because the global oil market appears to be in good shape and prices are expected to firm up from current levels, a senior Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters.Two more OPEC delegates said they expect...

>ATHENS Greece and its creditors were continuing talks on a cash-for-reforms deal but are expected to miss a self-imposed Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement to unlock aid, sources close to the talks said.Athens and its euro zone and International Monetary Fund (IMF) creditors have been locked in talks...

>CAIRO In his battle against militant Islam, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is relying not just on bomber planes and soldiers but on white-turbaned clerics from Al-Azhar, Egypt's 1,000-year-old center for Islamic learning. He wants clerics to counter radicalism in the classroom.In a televised speech in January at an...

>DUBAI Middle East fund managers have on balance become bearish on the region's biggest stock market, Saudi Arabia, after oil's rally ran out of steam and the kingdom confirmed strict rules on foreign investment, a monthly Reuters survey shows.The survey of 15 leading investment firms, conducted over the past...

>Schaeuble has clashed repeatedly with Yanis Varoufakis over Greece's debt and economic reforms since the leftist Syriza party took power in January, pledging to end austerity and renegotiate the bailout terms.In an interview with the children's television program "Logo" on German broadcaster ZDF last week, a girl reporter gave...

>The leaders of the G7 nations held a summit without Russian President Vladimir Putin last year in protest against Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.With little sign of the fighting in eastern Ukraine ending despite a ceasefire deal agreed in Minsk over three months ago, the exclusion has continued...

>LONDON Years of uncertainty and economic pain spent keeping Greece in the euro zone boils down in June to a handful of make-or-break debt repayments, while a raft of key data in the next few days will point to the progress of the global economy.The threat posed to the...

>Hotel Lotte Co Ltd, an unlisted unit of Lotte Group, will lead the formation of a new company that will acquire and operate the Palace, a Lotte Group spokeswoman said."Hotel Lotte is a company that has been actively entering markets abroad. We have continuously been looking for fitting M&A...

>The raid hit an air base near Sanaa airport and a military installation overlooking the presidential palace compound. The Saudi-led coalition began air strikes in Yemen in March in a campaign to restore Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. He fled in March, after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized the...

>SINGAPORE China will take a decision on establishing an air defense identification zone around disputed waters in the South China Sea based on its assessment of the security situation, a senior Chinese military official said on Sunday.Land reclamation work by China around disputed islands has led to speculation it...

>NEW YORK/PARIS/ANKARA Six world powers have agreed on a way to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the terms of a future nuclear deal, clearing a major obstacle to an accord ahead of a June 30 deadline, Western officials told Reuters.The new understanding on a...