News Archive - 16 October 2015

>"The military operation has started in rural southern Aleppo," a pro-government source in Syria said. Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there were heavy clashes near the Jebel Azzan region, about 12 km (8 miles) south of Aleppo city, control of which is divided between...

>BEIJING China will never "recklessly" resort to the use of force in the South China Sea, a senior Chinese general said on Saturday, amid tensions over Beijing's building of islands in the disputed waters.China's relations with several Southeast Asian countries, especially the Philippines and Vietnam who have competing claims...

>WASHINGTON Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, has launched a review aimed at cutting corporate overhead costs by as much as 30 percent, according to two sources familiar with the initiative.Lockheed would already reduce overhead substantially as part of an announced plan to sell or...

>The deal, valued at $7.03 per share, includes $6.90 in cash and net proceeds from the company's sale of its evo Montreal joint venture estimated to be 13 cents per share, the company said on Friday.The news comes more than five months after the company, which had...

>NEW YORK Half a dozen Republican presidential candidates are edging toward financial crisis, raising the specter that some may be forced to drop out of the sprawling field of contenders.They all spent more than they took in during the third quarter, according to campaign finance reports filed on Thursday.

>BEIRUT/ANKARA Turkey shot down a drone on Friday in an incident highlighting the dangers of multiple air combat operations over Syria, where government troops and their allies backed by Russian jets have launched an offensive against rebels near Aleppo.The army offensive south of the city, backed by Hezbollah and...

>FRANKFURT/TORONTO Bombardier Inc's (BBDb.TO) plans to sell a minority stake in its rail unit via an initial public offering in Germany have been put on the back burner and any listing may now only occur in the second quarter of next year, said four sources familiar with the matter.

>Match Group Inc, the owner of dating services such as Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com, filed with U.S. regulators on Friday for an initial public offering of common stock.The company is owned by media mogul Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp, which said in June it would float less than 20...

>WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump once again provoked a tit-for-tat row on Friday by saying former president George W. Bush must share some of the blame for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Trump, who has made no secret of his dislike of the Bush family and has frequently baited...

>The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission are leading an investigation, which began at least a year ago, Bloomberg reported. (bloom.bg/1LSxcUI)"We have received no information from the authorities about any such alleged matter," Dow Jones spokeswoman Colleen Schwartz said in an email, adding...

>Ballmer's stake is worth more than $800 million based on Twitter's $21 billion market value. Only co-founder Evan Williams and Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal have greater stakes among individual investors. Shares of Twitter rose 5.6 percent to $31.34 on Friday, hours after Ballmer tweeted from a...

>WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Friday they were open to negotiations with North Korea on sanctions but Pyongyang needed to show it was serious about abandoning its nuclear weapons program.Asked if he saw the possibility of a deal with North...

>U.S. housing stocks could be in for a boost if September data due out next week confirms strength that market watchers expect. Home buyers returned from summer vacations to lower mortgage rates and increasing rents, and may have moved back into the market after staying away in August. Shares...

>Berry, who has a 4.1 percent in the company, has reached out to several buyout firms, seeking a private equity partner in order to put together an offer for Fresh Market, the people said this week.Berry's son-in-law, Michael Barry, who previously served as Fresh Market's chief financial officer,...

>WASHINGTON Turmoil swirled again around the Republican-controlled Benghazi committee on Friday as it questioned a senior aide to Hillary Clinton, prompting fresh accusations that the panel was created to damage the Democratic front-runner's presidential campaign.In a six-hour closed door interview, members and staff sought answers from Huma Abedin, for...

>"A person who opened fire on a husseiniya was killed, and the attacker was in his twenties," Al Ekhbariya TV quoted sources as saying, adding that four people were injured.The station added that his motives remained unclear.A resident reached by telephone told Reuters that an attacker approached the...

>HAVANA Low commodity prices, a drought at home and Venezuela's economic crisis have created a cash shortage for Cuba's Communist government, restricting its ability to trade just as it could be taking advantage of an economic opening with the United States.State companies have cut imports and are seeking longer...

>The company, which tracks large U.S. retailers and specialty stores, also expects foot traffic to drop 8.1 percent during November and December from a year ago.However, shoppers are likely to spend slightly more on average than a year earlier, during the most profitable season for retailers. Some...

>LONDON/ZURICH Acacia Pharma (IPO-ACAC.L), a specialist in finding new uses for existing medicines, said on Friday it had postponed plans to float in London due to adverse market conditions.Acacia is the latest European biotech company to be caught in a downdraft from the U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology...

>WASHINGTON When Boeing Co., General Electric Co. and other companies wanted to show Congress last February the dangers of closing the Export-Import Bank, they turned to a time-tested Washington ritual: knocking on Capitol Hill office doors.Working together, they mobilized executives from more than 650 companies to descend on...

>The company said it does not expect Kordestani to be appointed to any committee of the board. Twitter poached Kordestani from Google Inc on Wednesday, the latest step in the company's turnaround efforts under Jack Dorsey, who last week was named permanent CEO. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bengaluru;...

>DES MOINES, Iowa Hillary Clinton spent $26 million over the summer building up her 2016 campaign, more than any of her rivals either within her own Democratic party or the Republican side, as she sought to build a formidable organization to help her capture the White House.The former first...

>TRIPOLI Tripoli's government on Friday named the two new Libyan suspects in the Lockerbie bombing investigation as Abdullah al-Senussi, the former spy chief of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi, and a second man, Mohammed Abu Ejaila.Senussi is currently being held in a jail in Tripoli after he was sentenced for...

>U.S. stocks were set to open little changed on Friday as investors digested mixed quarterly results from industrial heavyweights General Electric and Honeywell.GE's (GE.N) shares were nearly flat at $28.10 premarket after the company posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit.Industrial tools maker Grainger (GWW.N) fell...

>SHANGHAI A rare glimpse at figures for a number of Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N) China outlets shows sales slid 6 percent last year, casting a shadow over the firm's target for China to account for a quarter of its global retail growth over the next five years.The U.

>economy lost momentum in the third quarter. Industrial output slipped 0.2 percent after a revised 0.1 percent dip in August, the Federal Reserve said on Friday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast industrial production slipping 0.2 percent last month after a previously reported 0.4 percent decline...

>Mimecast, whose customers include software maker NetSuite Inc and advertising giant Omnicom Group Inc, said it plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol "MIME".Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets and Oppenheimer & Co are underwriting the IPO, the company said in a filing with...

>Unlike the taxis, which can be flagged down in the street and use a meter to calculate fares, Uber allows customers to book and pay for a taxi using an app on their smartphones.It also provides a second app for drivers to calculate the cost of a journey.The...

>China is trying to modernize its industrial production and has identified robotics as a major area for growth amid labor shortages and fast-rising wages.   The world's second-largest economy still has far lower robot penetration than other big industrialized economies - just 36 per 10,000 manufacturing workers versus 478 in...

>JERUSALEM Palestinians set fire to a Jewish shrine in the West Bank on Friday as the Islamist group Hamas called for a day of rage against Israel, with tensions still running high after two weeks of violence.Israel's military said about 100 people converged on the tomb of the biblical...

>The military said earlier in a statement that it had shot down an unidentified aircraft after it continued on its trajectory despite three warnings, in line with the NATO member's rules of engagement.Broadcaster NTV said the drone was brought down around 3 km (1.9 miles) inside Turkish air...

>LONDON The dollar pulled away from seven-week lows on Friday, after better-than-expected U.S. inflation data kept alive bets the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates this year, and as expectations grew for more euro zone easing. Annual inflation in the euro zone turned negative in September, data confirmed on...

>The company, whose customers include Airbus Group SE (AIR.PA), Boeing Co (BA.N) and Bombardier Inc (BBDb.TO), has been cutting jobs and selling or merging businesses to reduce costs and boost efficiency.Honeywell's expenses fell about 7 percent to $6.65 billion in the third quarter, while operating...

>The conglomerate overall reported third-quarter net earnings of $2.51 billion, or 25 cents per share, compared with $3.54 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year ago. (Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York Editing by W simon)...

>WILLISTON, N.D. Occidental Petroleum Corp's move to sell its North Dakota acreage likely removes a logjam that had impeded U.S. oilfield deals for much of the year, though the deal's price sets an unusually low bar for future deals and gives buyers the advantage over sellers. Oxy is...

>CHICAGO Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is expected to plead guilty in a hush-money case stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct in a deal with prosecutors that could still force him to serve time in prison.The tentative plea agreement, disclosed during a brief hearing in federal court...

>NEW YORK Jeb Bush is leading the U.S. presidential campaign by at least one measure: financial support from Wall Street.The former Florida governor who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination received more financial backing than any competitor - Democrat or Republican - from employees of the major Wall...

>NEW YORK Big data is starting to make its way down to even the smallest non-profit, and fund managers are finding a way to buy in.Among their favorite targets: U.S. software provider Blackbaud Inc (BLKB.O), whose cloud-based software is a favorite among non-profits looking to cash in...

>SAN FRANCISCO Last year, many tech IPOs enjoyed soaring valuations in their Wall Street debut, raining cash on the companies and their investors and boosting concerns about another Silicon Valley bubble. Now, the party is winding down, according to data analyzed by Reuters: Five of the 12 U.S.-based...

>TOKYO Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Friday that consumer prices are rising more than 1 percent excluding fresh food and energy, which shows that the overall inflation trend is improving.Kuroda also said domestic demand will strengthen as the companies and households use their income to increase...

>NEW YORK The University of Wisconsin-Madison's patent licensing body will not be able to extract triple damages from Apple as a jury weighs how much the iPhone maker must pay for using its microchip technology without permission, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday.On Tuesday, a federal jury in...