News Archive - 30 October 2015

>WASHINGTON The United States will deploy dozens of special operations troops to northern Syria from next month to advise opposition forces in their fight against Islamic State, a major policy shift for President Barack Obama and a step he has long resisted to avoid getting dragged into another war in...

>Peet's Coffee & Tea [PEETC.UL] will expand its reach in the hot "third wave" coffee sector with the purchase of a majority stake in Intelligentsia Coffee, the two chains said on Friday.The deal is the second this month for Peet's, a pioneer in the craft U.S. coffee...

>Cleveland-based KeyCorp (KEY.N) has agreed to buy First Niagara Financial Group Inc (FNFG.O) of Buffalo for $4.1 billion in the biggest deal this year between two U.S. regional banks.The deal will create the 13th biggest U.S.-based commercial bank and is the latest in...

>LONDON Three buyout funds are vying to buy General Electric's (GE.N) banking unit in France as the U.S. conglomerate presses ahead with its plan to offload its financing operations in Europe, four sources familiar with the matter said. Private equity groups CVC Capital Partners [CVC.UL], Cerberus Capital...

>WASHINGTON The Republican National Committee on Friday dumped NBC News from sponsoring a Feb. 26 debate of presidential candidates in the fallout over a debate conducted by media partner CNBC this week that was roundly criticized by the candidates.The move comes as several campaigns seek to change the format...

>WASHINGTON The White House will not allow the release of emails exchanged between President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton from when she was secretary of state, a senior administration official said on Friday. The emails may be withheld until after Obama leaves office under the Presidential Records Act, according to...

>London's Metropolitan Police said the 16-year old boy had been arrested at an address in west London on Thursday and was later released on bail. On Monday, police arrested a 15-year-old boy in Northern Ireland who was also released on bail. The attack was one of the biggest in Britain...

>BOSTON Some big U.S. retailers are stepping up efforts to use personal identification numbers, or PINs, with new credit cards embedded with computer chips in a bid to prevent counterfeit card fraud.But they are being resisted by the banking industry, which sees no need to invest further in...

>LONDON The hacking scandal at broadband provider TalkTalk has heightened interest in stocks and companies dealing in cyber security, with some fund managers betting on more growth in the sector.British police said on Friday that they had arrested a second teenager in connection with the breach at TalkTalk, which...

>JERUSALEM Knife-wielding Palestinians attacked Israelis in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Friday and police said they had shot dead two assailants, in a further wave of violence spurred partly by tensions over a Jerusalem holy site. Four people, including another Palestinian assailant, were wounded in the incidents at...

>On Tuesday, a U.S. warship sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of Beijing's man-made islands in the contested Spratly archipelago, triggering a sharp reaction from China."The U.S. are exercising their freedom of navigation," a senior EU official said at a briefing, chiming with the U.S.

>FRANKFURT U.S. jobs data due next week may hold the key to whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for the first time since 2006 in December, signaling its intention to end an era of almost-free dollars. An increase in the Fed's rates would have consequences well beyond...

>NEW YORK Oil gained on Friday while stocks on Wall Street closed lower even as major U.S. and European stock indices posted their best month in at least four years, boosted in part by accommodative monetary policies in the euro zone and Japan.Oil prices rose after the U.

>Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc (VRX.N)(VRX.TO), seeking to allay investor concerns about its business practices, said Friday it is cutting ties with a specialty pharmacy called Philidor Rx Services accused of helping it inflate revenue.The news failed to stem Valeant's sliding share price, which lost another 12 percent...

>Chevron Corp (CVX.N) is slashing 10 percent of its workforce and sharply paring back its budget, with Chief Executive Officer John Watson giving a downbeat view on Friday of an industry beleaguered by low oil prices.A more than 55 percent decline in crude oil CLc1 since last year...

>WASHINGTON U.S. consumer spending in September recorded its smallest gain in eight months as personal income barely rose, suggesting some cooling in domestic demand after recent hefty increases.The Commerce Department data and another report from the Labor Department on Friday also showed weak inflationary pressures, which would argue...