News Archive - 8 June 2015

>WASHINGTON Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air strikes have opened supply lines into Baiji town and its nearby oil refinery, making progress at last against Islamic State rebels in a seesaw battle that has gone on for months, the Pentagon said on Monday.Army Colonel Steve Warren,...

>The first hearing of Iranian-U.S. citizen Rezaian also had been held behind closed doors on May 26 at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Rezaian has been in Tehran's Evin prison since his arrest in July, 2014. "The second hearing of Rezaian for spying which had started...

>ATHENS/KRUEN, Germany Greece proclaimed a new willingness to compromise with its international creditors on Monday, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that time was running out for a reform-for-aid deal to keep the country in the euro.Three days after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told his parliament the latest proposal...

>Marchionne has been emboldened by recent successes of activist investors at GM and sees them as a means to consolidate the auto industry, the newspaper cited the people as saying. Fiat Chrysler and GM were not immediately available for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.GM said in March...

>With the Obama administration preparing to make millions more Americans eligible for overtime pay, Republicans in Congress have set a hearing for this week to highlight claims by business owners who say the move could kill jobs and spark more lawsuits.The U.S. Department of Labor last month submitted...

>SYDNEY Asia shares were subdued on Tuesday while the dollar relapsed as investors raced to book profits on its post-payroll gains despite all the talk of a U.S. rate rise as early as September.Japan's Nikkei .N225 eased 0.7 percent and Australian stocks .AXJO were barely changed. MSCI's...

>Henkel & Co KGaA AG (HNKG_p.DE) and Coty Inc (COTY.N), both of which have personal care and cosmetics businesses, made binding offers to buy separate parts of Procter & Gamble Co's (PG.N) beauty businesses worth up to a total of $12 billion, according to people familiar with...

>CHICAGO A high-profile Washington, D.C., defense attorney will represent former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert on criminal charges he tried to hide $3.5 million in payments he was making to conceal past misconduct, the attorney's law firm confirmed on Monday.Thomas Green of Sidley...

>BERLIN Apple Inc plans to introduce its mobile payments service to the UK next month, supported by major banks and high-street retailers and the operator of the London Underground, the technology company said on Monday.Apple Pay will be available in 250,000 locations across the UK when it launches in...

>SINGAPORE/TAIPEI Chip companies are merging, signing $66 billion worth of deals this year alone in preparation for an explosion of demand from all walks of life as the next technological revolution takes hold: the Internet of Things.As cars, crockery and even cows are controlled or monitored online, each will...

>The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis on Monday launched a search for a "strategic thought leader" to replace current president Narayana Kocherlakota, who is returning to academia after years of failing to persuade colleagues in the U.S. central bank to support more accommodative monetary policy.Kocherlakota, a university professor...

>AMSTERDAM Executives at Israeli drugmaker Teva (TEVA.TA) sent an open letter to takeover target Mylan (MYL.O) on Monday, saying they remain committed to a deal and reiterated that Teva's $40 billion takeover proposal would benefit shareholders of both firms.In the letter, addressed to Mylan executive founder Robert...

>MIAMI Delta Air Lines Inc (DAL.N) is hoping to strengthen partnerships with carriers in South Korea, Mexico and Brazil, and it has been approached about investing in Japan's bankrupt Skymark Airlines, Delta's president Ed Bastian told reporters Monday.The comments, made on the sidelines of the International Air Transport...

>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. A Florida doctor accused of giving lavish gifts to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez in a corruption case was due back in federal court Monday to have bail set on separate Medicare fraud charges.Salomon Melgen faces 76 counts of Medicare fraud and falsifying medical records,...

>Atmel Corp (ATML.O), a maker of small processors called microcontrollers that are used in the electronics industry, is exploring strategic alternatives, including a possible sale, three people familiar with the matter said on Monday.Atmel, which has a market capitalization of around $4 billion, is working with investment bank...

>Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit with world leaders in Germany, Obama said he expects immigration reform will be a major topic in the 2016 presidential campaign. "We will continue to push as hard as we can on all fronts to fix a broken immigration system administratively," Obama said.

>KRUEN, Germany President Barack Obama, reprising a phrase that caused uproar in Washington last year, said on Monday the United States does not yet have a "complete strategy" for training Iraqi security forces to reconquer territory seized by Islamic State fighters.Speaking to reporters after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Haider...

>CHICAGO U.S. chief executive officers have become a bit more pessimistic in their outlook for the American economy in 2015 and fewer of them expect to increase sales, investment and hiring this year, a quarterly business group survey said on Monday.The Business Roundtable's second-quarter survey, conducted before U.

>HERZLIYA, Israel Airbus (AIR.PA) is "watching with interest" to see whether United Technologies Corp (UTC) (UTX.N) puts its Sikorsky helicopter business up for sale, the head of Airbus' U.S. division said on Monday.UTC expects to make a decision on whether the conglomerate will divest Sikorsky in...

>U.S. investment bank Stifel Financial Corp (SF.N) said on Monday it would buy Barclays Plc's (BARC.L) U.S. wealth and investment management unit, which is largely made up of the former brokerage arm of Lehman Brothers.The companies did not disclose the deal value, but Barclays said...

>McHugh, a former Republican congressman from New York, has notified Democratic President Barack Obama of his desire to step down by November, giving the White House time to organize a smooth transition to a new secretary, the Pentagon said."Secretary McHugh has been a tremendous public servant for decades, and...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law that would let American citizens born in Jerusalem have Israel listed in passports as the country of their birth, saying it unlawfully encroached on the president's powers to set foreign policy.The 6-3 ruling, a victory for President...

>"This problem is not going to go away. It is going to accelerate. And that means that we have to be as nimble, as aggressive and as well-resourced as those who are trying to break into these systems," Obama said at a news conference at the G7 summit in Germany.

>The plan entails connecting Apple's data centers in California, Nevada, North Carolina and Oregon, and others to get content closer to Internet hubs in some densely populated markets, Bloomberg reported. (bloom.bg/1IpsB7y)Apple is seeking to handle more traffic on its own, without renting server space from cloud providers such as...

>LONDON Shares in Actelion (ATLN.VX), Europe's biggest biotech company, jumped 10 percent to a record high on Monday after a report Shire (SHP.L) was considering a $19 billion takeover of the Swiss group to boost its rare diseases business.Shire, which is based in Ireland but has most...

>NEW YORK It has become a recurrent moment in Hillary Clinton's speeches as she campaigns for the presidency: softening her voice to a hush, she says she wants to end the "quiet epidemic" of Americans dying from overdoses of painkillers and other drugs.Often, she remarks how surprised she is...

>NEW YORK/SEATTLE With the biggest year in chip deals since 2000 not even halfway through, mid-sized semiconductor makers appear to be prime takeover targets as the largest players look to round out their capabilities and turn their focus to chips for cars, watches and other devices, making the "Internet of...

>Qualcomm said it plans to sell spectrum known as L-Band which can be used to boost the downloading capacity that mobile operators provide to customers."Qualcomm UK Spectrum (QUKS), Qualcomm's subsidiary that owns L-Band spectrum rights in the UK, plans to trade this spectrum," it said in a statement. Mobile...

>Apple is expected to unveil a new music service and better tools to build apps for its smartwatch at its annual gathering of developers in San Francisco on Monday.The tech giant’s legion of independent developers will get a preview of a new software kit for the two-month-old Apple Watch...

>ANKARA Turkey faced the prospect of weeks of political turmoil after the ruling AK Party lost its parliamentary majority in weekend polls, dealing a blow to President Tayyip Erdogan's ambitions to acquire sweeping new powers.Instead of the two-thirds majority he had wanted to change the constitution and create a...

>HAVANA Communist Cuba's newfound interest in foreign capital has its limits, as Philippe Pouletty found out.A French doctor, venture capitalist and founder of biotech company Abivax, Pouletty is working with Cuba's Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology to develop a therapeutic vaccine to treat chronic Hepatitis B that could...

>"Definitely our proposal is the starting point," government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis told a news conference. "The mission of the Greek delegation is to explore the possibility of a solution that satisfies both sides."He also said resorting to elections was not part of the government's plans and that Athens was...

>FRANKFURT The appointment of John Cryan as chief executive of Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) sent shares in Germany's largest lender up 8 percent on Monday as investors judged the Briton a more credible contender than his two ousted predecessors to revive its fortunes.Cryan faces one of the most difficult...

>Bloomberg News earlier quoted a French official as saying Obama had made the comment."The President did not state that the strong dollar was a problem," the U.S. official said. "He made a point that he has made previously, a number of times: that global demand is too weak...

>U.S. stocks ended lower on Monday as investors worried about Greece and mulled the prospect of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates as early as September.With investors growing more nervous about the timing of the Fed's first rate hike in nearly a decade, the Dow dipped into negative...

>Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, faces mounting threats from both regulatory scrutiny and consumer opposition. A drive by the producer of Roundup herbicide to diversify its business is making Syngenta a compelling target, analysts say.If Monsanto takes over Syngenta, it would gain a broad portfolio of fungicides, insecticides...

>WASHINGTON Something about Vladimir Putin makes Republicans in the U.S. presidential race see red.The Russian president has emerged as a symbol for what they view as President Barack Obama's weak foreign policy, and an easy route for criticizing his former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' likely...