News Archive - 10 June 2015

>SEOUL U.S. activist hedge fund Elliott filed another injunction to block a proposed $8 billion merger of two key Samsung Group companies, escalating a conflict over a deal seen key to leadership transfer at South Korea's top conglomerate. Elliott said it had filed its second injunction with a South...

>JAKARTA Jakarta's traffic jams are a constant vexation for the city's 10 million residents. With the chaos not looking to abate anytime soon, entrepreneurial types have made it their business to help fellow commuters circumvent the world's worst gridlock. Commuters spend three to four hours a day in their cars...

>Qualcomm also said Wang Xiang would leave his role as president of Greater China. Wang will head for Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL], the Beijing-based five-year-old upstart, which was valued at $45 billion in December, announced in a separate statement.Qualcomm's shakeup comes after a long stretch of...

>SAN FRANCISCO At least two Apple Inc retail store workers complained directly to Chief Executive Tim Cook that the company's policy of checking retail employees' bags as a security precaution was embarrassing and demeaning, according to a court filing made public on Wednesday.The employee complaints, which a judge ordered...

>Overall spending by the central and local governments totaled 1.31 trillion yuan ($211.08 billion) in May, the ministry said.The government has budgeted a fiscal deficit for 2015 equal to 2.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), but Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said in March that the...

>SYDNEY Australian employment jumped past all expectations in May to drive the jobless rate to a one-year low of 6.0 percent, a brightening break in recent gloomy news that sent the local dollar over half a U.S. cent higher.Thursday's figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed...

>NEW YORK A widening gap in the costs to hedge interest rate risk between platforms based in London and Chicago is generating losses for Wall Street dealers and creating concern about how well this corner of the bond market will respond when the Federal Reserve raises rates.    In the...

>Monsanto is hosting meetings across Europe this week to woo Syngenta investors, and two Monsanto top executives said in one of these gatherings that only a due diligence assessment of Syngenta's operations could tell whether there was room for a higher offer than the 449 Swiss francs per share proposed...

>For two years, President Barack Obama has used his executive power to impose new rules to cut carbon emissions, targeting cars and power plants, buoying environmentalists and infuriating industry.His latest foray - regulating commercial aviation - had the opposite effect.On Wednesday, the administration took a first step toward...

>WASHINGTON Various Republican governors with an eye on the White House can point to tax cuts and other business-friendly policies they spearheaded as they enter the crowded 2016 presidential contest. But many of them can't highlight robust economic growth.Among the handful of governors and former governors competing for the...

>SAN FRANCISCO To help treat soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, Jennifer Patterson turned to a gadget typically associated with video games: the virtual reality headset from Oculus, a company Facebook Inc bought for $2 billion last year. Patterson, an engineering student at the University of Pittsburgh, studied a software used...

>SEOUL A deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) forced South Korea's central bank to cut interest rates on Thursday as authorities reported 14 new cases.Worry in South Korea about the outbreak has been reflected across the region with dozens of suspected cases being tested in Hong Kong,...

>WASHINGTON Differences between the United States and China over the South China Sea and cyber security should not be addressed by "microphone diplomacy" but in "a proper way" to allow for a successful U.S. visit by President Xi Jinping this year, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Wednesday.Wu...

>The outlook on the long-term rating on the United States remains stable, the ratings agency said. (Reporting by Anjali Rao Koppala in Bengaluru)...

>TOKYO Asian stocks gained early on Thursday after seeing Wall Street shares halt their selloff, while the New Zealand dollar tumbled to a five-year low after the Reserve Bank there cut its overnight cash rate. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.1 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei .

>"We've looked at HSBC's operations in Turkey and Brazil. They wouldn't be easy deals. We are going to see, and if we get the opportunity we'll go for it," Rodero, head of BBVA global franchises, said according to the website.A BBVA spokesman in Madrid could not confirm Rodero's remarks...

>WASHINGTON After nationwide protests against police and years of debate over sentencing guidelines, the U.S. House of Representatives' top judicial lawmaker plans to consider criminal justice reforms piece by piece, rather than as a single, broad reform package.Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte announced on Wednesday that the House Judiciary...

>Ma said the group would achieve $1 trillion in "sales" in five years. A spokesman for the group said he was referring to "gross merchandise volume," a measure of the transactions across its various platforms, which came to roughly $390 billion in the past fiscal year. (Reporting by Nandita Bose...

>Department spokesman Jeff Rathke identified the American as Keith Broomfield.NBC News reported Broomfield was in Syria fighting alongside Kurdish forces against Islamic State militants. Reuters could not immediately confirm why Broomfield was in Syria. Social media accounts belonging to Kurdish fighters reported Broomfield's death, saying he was killed near...

>VATICAN CITY A stern Pope Francis urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to make a "sincere and great effort" to achieve peace in Ukraine.The two met for about 50 minutes and agreed on the need to recreate a climate of dialogue in Ukraine and to implement a peace...

>WASHINGTON The World Bank on Wednesday cut its global growth outlook for this year and urged countries to "fasten their seat belts" as they adjust to lower commodity prices and a looming rise in U.S. interest rates.Kaushik Basu, the World Bank's chief economist, said the Federal Reserve should...

>SAN FRANCISCO A decade ago, Apple Inc helped revitalize a music industry hit hard by online piracy with its iTunes Store. Now, amid a steady slump in digital downloads, the industry is hopeful that the tech giant's new streaming service will give record companies another desperately needed boost.Apple Music,...

>Digital Realty Trust Inc is working on a bid to acquire private equity-owned data center peer Telx Group Inc for more than $2 billion, in a deal that would diversify its business, according to people familiar with the matter. Digital Realty's move is the latest sign of consolidation in the...

>"If the court makes that decision, we're going to do everything we can," Burwell told the House Ways and Means Committee. But, she added, "The critical decisions ... will sit with the Congress, and states and governors to determine if those subsidies are available." The court's ruling on the case,...

>The stock fell as much as 27 percent before paring losses to trade 23.3 percent lower at 43 Swiss francs by 0430 ET."AMS would appear to have lost the contract for the next generation of Apple products," Finanz und Wirtschaft reported, citing sources close to the company.Representatives...

>"While the process will likely be slow compared to past rate hike cycles, if the Fed manages to stabilize inflation at its target of 2 percent, then the central bank should get to the neutral policy rate of 2 percent–2.5 percent within a couple of years," Mather said. The...

>ADEN At least 43 people were killed in heavy fighting in Yemen overnight and on Wednesday between supporters of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the country's dominant Houthi group, residents, tribal and medical sources said.The clashes erupted ahead of U.N.-sponsored talks in Geneva next week aimed...

>The Commerce Department's quarterly services survey, or QSS, showed consumption, including healthcare spending, increased at a faster clip than the government had assumed in its second estimate of gross domestic product published last month.Economists said the data suggested first-quarter consumer spending could be bumped up by as much as...

>The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened higher on Wednesday for the first time in five days and returned to positive territory for the year as a selloff in the equities market took a breather.The Nasdaq Composite snapped a four-day losing streak, rising the most in a month, and the...

>The Thomson Reuters/IPSOS Primary Consumer Confidence Sentiment Index fell to 55.0 in June from 56.7 in May.The Thomson Reuters PCSI comes out two days before the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index and independent testing has shown up to a 90 percent correlation between the PCSI and...

>TeliaSonera said on Wednesday it will pay $115 million for a batch of newly issued shares in Spotify as it expands its partnership with the unlisted Stockholm-based business, that provides free on-demand music or an advertisement-free service for paying customers, valuing the company at about $8.2 billion.TeliaSonera Chief Executive...

>The deal, expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2016, marks Bayer's second attempt to divest the blood glucose monitoring business which has brands such as Contour, Breeze, Elite and Microlet.Bayer tried to find a buyer for the business in 2012 and revived efforts to sell it...

>TOKYO Tokio Marine Holdings Inc (8766.T) said on Wednesday it had agreed to buy U.S. specialty insurer HCC Insurance Holdings Inc (HCC.N) for $7.5 billion, in what would be the biggest M&A deal this year by a Japanese company.Tokio Marine, Japan's largest insurer by market...

>WASHINGTON Republicans aimed for a vote on Friday to hand President Barack Obama the coveted "fast-track" trade negotiating authority he needs to complete his signature Pacific trade pact, but Democrats warned the matter was far from settled.Even as Democratic leaders huddled in the Capitol over ways to help House...

>State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said Kerry was doing well and conducting business by telephone from Massachusetts General Hospital.Rathke was asked at a daily briefing why Kerry has not been in the public eye since a cycling accident in Geneva on May 31 or why no images of him...

>Police raided 58 locations as part of the investigation into online "phishing" scams used to transfer money from bank accounts across Europe, the Hague-based European police agency said in a statement.Officials in Belgium and the United Kingdom assisted the investigation and operation, which was conducted on Tuesday. "The parallel...

>The company has given driving locations on its website for June 15-30 which include Ireland, England and several cites in the United States. (apple.co/1MnGAvc)Apple said it would blur faces and license plates on collected images prior to publication to protect privacy. The camera-equipped vehicles deployed by Apple will give...

>Only 14 survivors, one of them the captain, were found after the ship carrying 456 overturned in a freak tornado on Monday night on the Yangtze River. Most of the passengers on the Eastern Star were elderly domestic tourists.The 60-strong investigation team is made up of specialists in meteorology,...

>WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM The United States is expected to announce on Wednesday plans for a new military base in Iraq's Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers to help Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State, a U.S. official said.The plan would expand the...

>BERLIN Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush on Wednesday explained a shake-up of his political team, saying he was trying to ensure that his staff all had roles suited to their skills as he prepares to launch his presidential bid.Earlier this week, Bush picked Danny Diaz, a veteran of Republican...

>LONDON The yen surged to a two-week high against the dollar on Wednesday, after the head of the Bank of Japan said the currency was unlikely to fall further because it was already "very weak", prompting investors to trim huge bets against the yen.Analysts said the comments suggest that...

>In a report posted on website of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the economists forecast annual inflation of just 1.4 percent this year, lowering their estimate from 2.2 percent earlier.The report specified that the estimates represented the view of the economists and not that of the...

>BRUSSELS/ATHENS Greece and its international lenders moved closer to the brink on Wednesday with the leaders of Germany and France holding off on an expected meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to press for more concessions from the Greek side.Athens said it was waiting for the creditors to respond...

>NEW YORK Overseas markets bring in more advertising revenue than the United States for Facebook Inc, amounting to 51 percent of global ad sales in the first quarter, with growth in Asia the fastest in the world at 57 percent, company executives told Reuters.While Facebook has reported regional growth...