News Archive - 28 October 2015

>Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that income below that level would not be taxed. Cruz also said he would eliminate the estate tax and taxes tied to the Obamacare health overhaul, and he would implement a 16 percent flat...

>BOULDER, Colo. Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz emerged as the strongest challengers on Wednesday to insurgent front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson, in a fiery debate that may have marked a new phase in the 2016 race.With time running short until the first nominating contest in...

>MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), the new holding company for Google, has teamed up with three Indonesian telecommunications companies to expand Internet access in that country using solar-powered balloons.Alphabet officials, including co-founder Sergey Brin, and representatives from Indonesian companies Telkomsel, XL Axiata Tbk PT (EXCL.JK) and...

>BEIJING Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed on Thursday that there must be a political solution to the crisis in Syria.China has repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of force to resolve the crisis in Syria, saying that a political solution was the only way...

>SYDNEY Two Australian warships will hold exercises with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea next week, Australia's defense minister said on Thursday, just days after a U.S. navy patrol near a man-made Chinese island in the disputed waters angered Beijing. The HMAS Stuart and HMAS Arunta will...

>TOKYO The Bank of Japan is expected to hold monetary policy steady on Friday even while diluting its rosy inflation forecasts, sources say, clinging to the hope a tightening job market will underpin consumption and help the economy emerge from a soft patch.Some BOJ policymakers have worried that sluggish...

>WASHINGTON U.S. economic growth likely braked sharply in the third quarter as businesses cut back on restocking warehouses to work off an inventory glut, but solid domestic demand could encourage the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in December. Gross domestic product probably increased at a 1.6 percent...

>NEW YORK After putting a December interest rate rise back on the agenda, Janet Yellen may now need to reinforce that message in coming weeks by "crowding out" dissenting voices in the Federal Reserve and navigating through possibly contradictory economic data.Markets rolled back bets that rates would remain pegged...

>TOKYO/SINGAPORE Asian shares fell and the dollar stood tall on Thursday, after the U.S. Federal Reserve revived market expectations that it might still be on track to raise interest rates by year-end.While Wall Street ended a volatile session with solid gains, apparently underpinned by the Fed's vote of...

>Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) recently approached Botox-maker Allergan Plc (AGN.N) to discuss what could be the biggest takeover deal this year, the Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.The healthcare sector has seen an unprecedented wave of deals since early 2014,...

>IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, which does not include the Weather Channel.But the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the deal would be valued at more than $2 billion. The Weather Channel will use weather forecast data and analytics from IBM under a...

>FRANKFURT U.S. buyout group Bain Capital is preparing to sell or float car parts maker FTE Automotive [PAIPRF.UL] to take advantage of high sector valuations, two people familiar with the matter said. After receiving expressions of interest from Asian groups, Bain asked Rothschild [ROT.UL] to sound out...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Republican Paul Ryan, pledging not to run the House of Representatives like a Roman emperor, made a final appeal Wednesday to Republicans to vote for him for speaker even as he backed a controversial two-year budget deal that would avert a government debt default.Ryan's support could...

>Activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a "large stake" in American International Group Inc (AIG.N) and urged the company to spin off its life and mortgage insurance units into public companies to shed the U.S. government's "too-big-to-fail" tag.Icahn's campaign highlights how some large financial companies are being given...

>TOKYO Japan's Toshiba Corp said on Wednesday it will sell its image sensor business to Sony Corp and overhaul its unprofitable semiconductor businesses as it works to recover from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal.Toshiba will sell its image sensor manufacturing plant in Oita, southern Japan, to Sony by...

>CHICAGO Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a federal financial crime in a hush-money case stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct, marking the dramatic downfall of a once powerful politician.In exchange for the guilty plea, federal prosecutors recommended a sentence of zero to...

>TOKYO Japan's Nintendo Co on Thursday pushed back the much-awaited launch of its videogame service for smartphones by a few months to March 2016, disappointing gaming fans as well as investors who drove its shares down by more than 10 percent.Under a strategy announced by its previous chief executive,...

>Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) may be counting on Moments to drive growth, but the moment for celebrating a turnaround still looks far off.Anyone hoping that Chief Executive Jack Dorsey's plans to boost growth would have had a big impact on third-quarter results would have been disappointed.Twitter reported both...

>GRECHANAYA BALKA, Russia The family of the first Russian soldier confirmed dead in Syria buried their son in a village graveyard on Wednesday, with his father saying there were no signs on the body to support the official account he had hanged himself.Russian defense officials say Vadim Kostenko, 19,...

>RIYADH/DUBAI Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they would attend international talks in Vienna on Friday on the war in Syria, in the first meeting between the regional adversaries aimed at ending the four-year-long war.Saudi Arabia said its participation in the talks aimed to gauge the willingness of Russia and...

>WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and may struggle to convince skeptical investors it can tighten monetary policy before the end of the year in the face of U.S. and global economic headwinds.The world's most powerful central bank hasn't hiked rates...

>Economists had expected gross domestic product to expand at an annual rate of 1.6 percent last quarter, according to a Reuters poll. Many, however, raised their forecasts after the Commerce Department reported that the goods trade deficit fell to $58.6 billion from $67.2 billion in August.Economists...

>Wall Street was boosted by gains in Apple and energy stocks on Wednesday, ahead of the Federal Reserve's policy statement later in the day.Apple (AAPL.O) sold 48 million iPhones in the latest reported quarter and reported a near doubling of revenue from China, allaying concerns about its business...

>Slowdown? What slowdown?Apple Inc (AAPL.O) reported blockbuster iPhone sales in China, suggesting that worries about the company's growth trajectory in the world's second-largest economy are overdone.Apple's shares rose nearly 3 percent in early trading on Wednesday.The stock has lost about 7 percent of its value in...

>Two influential U.S. senators called for close scrutiny of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc's (WBA.O) plan to buy Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N) for $9.4 billion, a deal that would unite two of the three biggest U.S. drugstore chains.Walgreens Chief Executive Stefano Pessina said the company...

>General Electric Co said on Wednesday it will spend more than $200 million to build two factories in Alabama to expand its capacity to make high strength materials for jet engines and power plant turbines.The plants in Huntsville will produce silicon-carbon ceramic materials for LEAP engines on thousands of...