News Archive - 14 June 2015

>SINGAPORE Oil prices extended declines on Monday after two straight days of losses late last week as high production offset strong refinery runs, but a storm that could impact Gulf of Mexico operations supported U.S. crude.Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude oil exporter, hinted late last week that...

>DES MOINES, Iowa Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said drug companies that would benefit from a Pacific trade pact should sell their products to the U.S. government at a discount in her strongest comments yet on an issue that has divided her party.Clinton's comments amount to an implicit...

>TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON A veteran Islamist militant blamed for masterminding an Algerian gasfield attack and running smuggling routes across North Africa, has been killed in a U.S. air strike inside Libya, Libya's recognized government said on Sunday.The government said the strike had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian militant who became...

>TOKYO Asian shares fell and the euro skidded in Asian trade on Monday, after Greece's talks with lenders to avert a default ended with no agreement and Wall Street logged losses ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting. European Union officials blamed the collapse of the talks on Athens, which it...

>"We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," Defense Department spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said in a statement. (Reporting by Peter Cooney; Editing by Sandra Maler)...

>WASHINGTON Bernie Sanders, the outspoken progressive U.S. senator challenging Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, urged her on Sunday to take a stand on a big trade deal that has divided the Democratic Party. Clinton aides appearing on Sunday television news shows said she would not weigh...

>Efforts by the Shi'ite Muslim-led government and its American allies to break the hardline group's control of about a third of Iraq are currently focused on Ramadi, in Sunni Muslim heartland Anbar province."They have started to show videos of their military operations in Iraq and also show confessions by...

>In a statement, Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis said the Greek delegation remains ready to resume talks but blamed European lenders for insisting on pension cuts and value-added-tax hikes to close the projected budget gap.The comments came after the European Commission said on Sunday the talks between Greece and...

>The deal could include 30 A320neo planes and up to 20 A330 aircraft, the sources said, speaking ahead of the June 15-21 Paris air show. Based on list prices, the deal could be worth around $8.2 billion. French newspaper La Tribune earlier reported Saudi Arabian Airlines was close to...

>The service will be called 'TBO', or Tmall Box Office, with content bought from China and other countries, as well as in-house productions, Alibaba's Patrick Liu told reporters in Shanghai.TBO will launch into a competitive online video market in China, where companies are spending billions of dollars to buy...

>"Well, listen, you know, we've got to put together a coalition of the willing, which has been used before ... and used successfully in that region," he said. In 2003, former President Bush used the phrase to refer to countries that supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Bush faced...

>JOHANNESBURG A South African judge barred Sudan's indicted president from leaving the country on Sunday, in a deepening rift between Africa and the West over what Pretoria called anti-poor country bias in the International Criminal Court (ICC).President Omar al-Bashir, visiting South Africa for an African Union summit, stands accused...

>The report came a few weeks after it emerged that hackers had attacked the Bundestag's (lower house of parliament) computer system.Speaking to newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said that cyber attacks were one of the biggest challenges for international security, citing the "enormous damage"...

>WASHINGTON Justice Anthony Kennedy was furious when a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. As he read the dissenting opinion from the bench three years ago, his anger was palpable. The majority regards its opinion “as judicial modesty," he declared. "It is not.

>The truce brokered by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in Minsk, Belarus, has stemmed large-scale fighting but skirmishes claim lives almost daily on both sides. International monitors have warned of the threat of a bigger flare-up."In the past 24 hours the number of ceasefire violations by...

>BRUSSELS China will pledge a multi-billion dollar investment in Europe's new infrastructure fund at a summit on June 29 in Brussels, according to a draft communique seen by Reuters - Beijing's latest round of chequebook diplomacy to win greater influence.While the exact amount is still to be decided, the...

>BRUSSELS/ATHENS Greek negotiators were expected to press the country's international creditors for debt relief on Sunday as Europe stepped up pressure on Athens to offer major concessions on austerity and reform or face dire consequences.Neither side doubts the urgency of reaching a deal as Greece must repay 1.6...

>A military spokeswoman said the jeep, which was in Qafr Malik village as part of an operation to arrest suspected militants, accidentally hit the Palestinian after he threw a petrol bomb at it. "The driver was startled and swerved, hitting the man," she said, adding that a military investigation would...

>Shareholders in Cairn India, India's top private oil producer, will get one share in Vedanta Ltd for every held, the companies said in a joint statement after their boards approved the transaction on Sunday. They will also get one redeemable preference share in Vedanta Limited. Debt-burdened Vedanta began simplifying its...

>ISTANBUL Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said a snap election would be "inevitable" if both the ruling AK Party and the main opposition fail in efforts to form a new government within the constitutional limit of 45 days.In comments published on Sunday in Milliyet newspaper, Erdogan said he planned to...

>LONDON For Rory Powe, running your own hedge fund wasn't all it was cracked up to be. In 2014, after 12 years building his business, Powe, 52, moved with his Powe Capital Management fund to join Man Group (EMG.L), the world's biggest listed hedge fund firm.Driven by rising...

>DONGGUAN, China/HONG KONG Every day hundreds of garment traders alight at the newly-built Humen station to ply their wares in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan, arriving on high speed trains that whoosh through the terminal every ten minutes. The station, 90 kilometers north of Hong Kong, is on the...

>SYDNEY The euro lurched lower first thing in Asia on Monday after efforts on ending a deadlock between Greece and its creditors broke up in failure over the weekend.Tellingly, the talks on Sunday lasted less than an hour, suggesting the differences between the two parties may be too wide...