News Archive - 14 July 2015

>VIENNA Iran and six major world powers reached a nuclear deal on Tuesday, capping more than a decade of negotiations with an agreement that could transform the Middle East.U.S. President Barack Obama hailed a step towards a "more hopeful world" and Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said it proved...

>"I think this is an important step that puts the lid on Iran's nuclear programs," the former U.S. secretary of state said. Clinton, speaking at the U.S. Capitol after meeting with House of Representatives Democrats, also said the deal would allow the United States to turn its attention...

>SINGAPORE Oil prices rose on Wednesday as traders expect a delay in Iranian crude supplies returning to the market after Tehran and six world powers reached a nuclear compromise, but analysts said prices would still remain low due to oversupply.Under the agreement, sanctions imposed by the United States, the...

>The EU competition authority did not provide details of Pfizer's proposal in line with its policy. It extended the deadline for its decision to Aug. 4 from July 20 to examine the concessions.It can either clear the deal if it considers Pfizer has allayed competition concerns regarding the deal...

>MILWAUKEE U.S. Republican presidential candidates on Tuesday roundly condemned President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, with Florida Senator Marco Rubio suggesting he would re-introduce sanctions if elected to the White House next year.The agreement reached between Iran and six major world powers will now be debated in...

>WASHINGTON The nuclear deal between world powers and Iran starts a new phase of intense negotiation - this time between the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress, where some Republicans have long been working to sink an agreement.Any effort in Congress to overturn the deal will face an...

>As one of the earlier entrants in the growing group of businesses offering loans to consumers with dings on their financial records, ZestFinance has spent years helping consumers with terrible, or no, credit. Now, it is branching out to consumers with merely bad credit, the group known as "near prime.

>National Security Commissioner Monte Alejandro Rubido showed a grainy video of a dressed Guzman pacing the room, looking behind the partition wall by his shower, sitting on his bed, then crouching again behind the wall, where he finally disappeared from view at 8:52 p.m. local time."He changed his...

>TOKYO Delta Air Lines has been proposed as a sponsor to rehabilitate Skymark Airlines Inc [SKALF.PK] by the bankrupt Japanese carrier's biggest creditor - a plan that challenges a separate proposal that has put forward ANA Holdings as a sponsor.If the move is approved by a majority of...

>The Japanese conglomerate has hired a third-party committee to investigate past book-keeping practices, and sources have said the probe was focusing on the role top officials played in the irregularities. Over half of the board was likely to be replaced at the company's next shareholders' meeting in September, sources said...

>WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO A Chinese state-backed company's plan to buy U.S. chip maker Micron Technology faces no shortage of obstacles - questions about the price, worries on Capitol Hill, an aggressive regulator - and any one of them could torpedo the deal.Analysts argued Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd's proposed price, $23...

>WALNUT CREEK, California The California Public Employees' Retirement System, projected to have negative cash flow for at least the next 15 years, is looking to recast investment priorities to slash the complexity and volatility embedded in its $301-billion portfolio, officials said on Tuesday.Fund officials, recognizing that the wave of...

>It has been a difficult year for the world's second-largest economy. Slowing growth in trade, investment and domestic demand has been compounded by a cooling property sector and deflationary pressures.Investor confidence was also rattled by a 30 percent crash in the stock markets last month, which at one point...

>BOC Hong Kong is a unit of Bank of China Ltd (3988.HK) (601988.SS), the fourth-biggest lender by assets in the mainland, and the sale of NCB will help streamline the group's operations by eliminating competition with BOC on the mainland.In a statement posted on the Beijing Financial...

>HONG KONG China's move to halt new company listings on its stock markets is offering private equity firms, hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds an opening to fill private companies' funding needs, paving the way for more M&A activity.After a plunge in share prices wiped out more than $3...

>TOKYO Asian stocks inched cautiously higher on Wednesday, taking their cue from Wall Street ahead of key events including Chinese economic data, a Bank of Japan policy decision and congressional testimony by the U.S. Federal Reserve chief.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS edged up 0.

>ATHENS/BRUSSELS An International Monetary Fund study published on Tuesday showed that Greece needs far more debt relief than European governments have been willing to contemplate so far, as fractious parties in Athens prepared to vote on a sweeping austerity package demanded by their lenders. The IMF's stark warning on Greece's...

>PHILADELPHIA President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he wanted to work with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on new prison sentencing reform legislation by the end of the year to reduce sentences for low-level drug dealers and parole violations."Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to...

>WASHINGTON Two months after discovering that sensitive personal information on 21.5 million Americans was compromised in a hack of government databanks, none of those affected has been officially notified, government officials said on Tuesday. The officials from multiple agencies, who are familiar with an investigation into the breach, said...

>SYDNEY Sterling was broadly higher early on Wednesday after the Bank of England put the prospect of an interest rate hike front and centre, while a surprise fall in U.S. retail sales kept the dollar pinned down.The pound rallied to two-week highs against the dollar, yen and the...

>Celgene said it would pay $232 per share in cash for the smaller biotech. Receptos shares closed at $207.18 on Nasdaq on Tuesday.The move comes just two weeks after Celgene said it would invest $1 billion in Juno Therapeutics to gain access to Juno's cancer immunotherapy portfolio in...

>The group, America Leads, said donors responded to the New Jersey governor's "willingness to tell it like it is." Christie in June joined the pack of candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the November 2016 election.Christie has given a series of policy speeches in recent weeks to separate...

>Hedge fund Paulson & Co has taken a stake in Syngenta AG, (SYNN.VX), and could push for the board of directors of the Swiss pesticide maker to accept a takeover offer from U.S. seed company Monsanto Co, (MON.N) people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.Monsanto,...

>SAN FRANCISCO Ride service Uber has reached a tentative settlement in a lawsuit brought by the family of a 6-year-old girl who died in a San Francisco car accident, according to court filings. The girl, Sofia Liu, died after she, her younger brother and their mother were hit by a...

>Twitter shares jumped on the report, which was distributed on the Internet and closely resembled Bloomberg's news website. Its origins could not be immediately established.Cybersecurity experts said the fake website and report did not require a high level of skill. The domain name was registered anonymously and it may...

>PORT BLAIR, India One by one, the four Indian warships cruised into a sleepy harbor in the country's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, fresh from visiting Southeast Asian capitals and conducting exercises in the disputed South China Sea.The arrival of the warships at Port Blair earlier this month symbolizes...

>Yemenis on social media reported celebrations in cities across the country's south, where refugees from Aden have fled, and in other areas where local fighters are still battling the Houthis and army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Houthi-run Maseera television reported that the Houthis had chosen to...

>TOKYO The Bank of Japan trimmed its economic growth forecast on Wednesday but held off on offering fresh stimulus, convinced that an expected pick up in consumption will help accelerate inflation toward its 2 percent target.Defying lingering market scepticism over its rosy outlook, the central bank roughly maintained its...

>Yum Brands Inc (YUM.N), the owner of Pizza Hut and KFC, reported its fourth straight quarter of falling sales, indicating that the company is still struggling to regain lost ground in China after a food scandal last year.Yum's sales at established KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in China...

>IAG's plan to buy Aer Lingus and build a new transatlantic hub at Dublin airport won the support last week of Ryanair, which holds a 30 percent stake in its rival, after convincing the Irish government to sell its 25 percent stake in May.Reuters reported on Friday that British...

>WASHINGTON Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton does not have a problem with ride service company Uber, a top aide said on Tuesday, but the candidate does have questions about what it and its sharing-economy peers mean for workers.Clinton senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan was asked Tuesday morning whether the...

>NEW YORK Micron Technology Inc attracted large options bets days ahead of reports that China's state-backed Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd is preparing a $23 billion bid for the U.S. memory chip maker.Micron's shares jumped as much as 13 percent to $19.84 on Tuesday, on reports that the Chinese...

>SAN FRANCISCO Mapping technology advancements from Google Inc and Facebook Inc that provide more precise user location data than ever before are starting to dent advertisers' longtime skepticism about boosting mobile ad spending.In recent years, major retailers have restricted mobile to 10 percent or less of their ad budgets...

>The Mid-Session Review budget update shows that the White House is now expecting real gross domestic product to rise by just 2.0 percent during calendar 2015, down from 3.0 percent estimated in February. (Reporting By David Lawder; Editing by Sandra Maler)...

>Sources familiar with the situation last week said Lockheed Martin Corp is the leading candidate to buy Sikorsky - the Pentagon's leading helicopter supplier - in a deal that could value the business at more than $8 billion.Textron Inc, the parent of Bell Helicopter, is also bidding for the...

>NAIROBI Kenya's trendy Westgate shopping mall will reopen on Saturday, nearly two years after gunmen from the Somali militant group al Shabaab massacred at least 67 people inside and held out for four days as security forces laid siege to the complex.Once a totem of Kenya's growing prosperity, the...

>Bahrain's Interior Ministry said on Sunday that Ibrahim Sharif, former head of the secular National Democratic Action Society, or Waad, was detained for incitement to overthrow the government and publicizing "hatred of the regime" in a speech on July 10.Sharif had been freed by royal pardon on June 19...

>The NYSE announced at 1:22 EDT that the previously reported issue had been resolved and all systems were functioning normally. Self-help, which occurs when an exchange is dealing with internal problems processing trades and needs to send orders through alternate venues was declared by NYSE Amex Options and MIAX Options...

>Amazon affiliate Amazon Web Services (AWS) said on Monday the wind farm would be operational by December of next year, putting it on track to surpass a goal for 40 percent its electrical grids to be powered by renewable energy by end-2016.The 208 megawatt farm, which adds to other...

>BEIJING China will begin the trial on July 28 of a Korean-American missionary arrested last year over a non-profit school he ran near the sensitive border with North Korea, his lawyer said, in a case that sparked outcry from international Christian groups.A sprawling crackdown had forced hundreds of Christian...

>LONDON Europe is failing to shake off the threat of deflation, with prices falling in Sweden, flat-lining in Britain and barely registering any increase in Germany and Italy.Data on Tuesday underlined that central banks across the continent are making little headway in boosting inflation despite flooding their economies with...

>WASHINGTON U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in June as households cut back on purchases of automobiles and a range of other goods, which could raise concerns the economy was slowing again.Tuesday's weak retail sales report, together with signs of some softening of the labor market, could dampen expectations...

>Digital Realty said the acquisition is expected to double its footprint in the rapidly-growing colocation business. The transaction is expected to close later in the year and add to 2016 results, the company said. Telx is owned by ABRY Partners and Berkshire Partners. (Reporting By Lehar Maan in Bengaluru; Editing...

>WPX, which will also assume $400 million of RKI's debt, said the deal would give it access to the liquids-rich Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico - the biggest and fastest growing U.S. shale oil field.The deal comes two months after Noble Energy Inc (NBL.N) said...

>SACRAMENTO, Calif. After years of fiscal and policy restraint by California Governor Jerry Brown, a new crop of legislative leaders are trying to push the state further to the left, with mixed results.It is a policy tussle that could ultimately benefit both sides, as Brown, criticized as too liberal...

>LOS ANGELES Local TV stations are plugging one of the last major holes in mobile video: streaming their news to phones and tablets. The move presents yet another challenge to cable and satellite providers, which are grappling with the widespread online availability of content. This fall, 112 U.S. stations...

>LONDON Apple introduced mobile payments in Britain on Tuesday, hoping to make a splash with consumers familiar with using cards for tap-and-go purchases, as resistance from hold-out banks and stores appeared to evaporate.Starting Tuesday, Apple Pay is set to be available in 250,000 sites, from Tube stations to coffee...

>Economic conditions were complicated and should not be underestimated, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement published on its website.The bank reiterated that it would continue to push forward with interest rate liberalization and keep the yuan exchange rate at a "reasonable level", without providing details.

>HONG KONG Two Hong Kong students who rose to fame during pro-democracy demonstrations that angered Beijing last year were charged on Tuesday with obstructing police during a protest earlier in the year.The charges were related to a protest outside the office of China's top official in the city, the...

>U.S. stock index futures mostly fell on Tuesday as investor focus shifted from Greece to the U.S. earnings season and as oil prices took a beating on expectations of increased supply after an Iran nuclear deal.* Iran and six world powers reached a deal under which sanctions...

>Net income attributable to the bank's common shareholders rose to $5.78 billion, or $1.54 per share in the second quarter ended June 30 from $5.57 billion, or $1.46 per share, a year earlier.Analysts on average had expected earnings of $1.44 per share, according to...