News Archive - 7 December 2015

>VIENNA Russia's envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency said on Monday he expected a historic nuclear deal between Iran and world powers to be implemented in January, leading to sanctions being lifted on Tehran.Under the deal, Iran must scale back its nuclear program, including its stockpile of low-enriched...

>SINGAPORE Crude prices remained near 7-year lows in early Asian trading on Tuesday as OPEC continues to pump near record oil to defend market share, compounding a glut that is seeing hundreds of thousands of barrels produced every day in excess of demand.Benchmark Brent and WTI futures both fell...

>Airbus Group SE (AIR.PA) is exploring a sale of Vector Aerospace Corp, a unit that services and maintains aircraft, in a deal that could be valued at more than $800 million, people familiar with the matter said on Monday. Airbus, Europe's largest aerospace group, is currently selling several businesses...

>The statement came after Donald Trump, the businessman and current front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, called for an immediate halt to all Muslims entering the country until further notice. "Everyone visiting our country should register and be monitored during their stay as is done in many countries," said...

>Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX.TO) (VRX.N) is reaching out to potential buyers for its specialty contact lens manufacturing division, Paragon Vision Sciences, amid scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, according to two people familiar with the matter.A sale of Paragon, which Valeant’s Bausch & Lomb unit purchased earlier this...

>BRUSSELS EU lawmakers and member states struck a deal on the bloc's first cyber-security law on Monday that will require Internet firms such as Google and Amazon to report serious breaches or face sanctions.The deal, following five hours of negotiations between the European Parliament and EU governments, was reached...

>CHICAGO Alphabet Inc's life sciences unit, which was previously a part of the tech company's Google X research and development unit, has picked Verily as its new name as it seeks more visibility in the fast-growing medical technology sector.The name change follows Google's transition to the parent name Alphabet,...

>BEIRUT Syria's government said a U.S.-led military coalition carried out a deadly air strike on a Syrian army camp, but coalition officials said the report was false.Syria said four coalition jets killed three of its soldiers and wounded 13 in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor on...

>TOKYO Japan's economy dodged a technical recession in the third quarter with the initial estimate of a contraction revised to an annualized expansion of 1.0 percent, offering a glimmer of hope for policymakers struggling to end years of stagnation.The upgrade from a preliminary reading of a 0.8...

>SYDNEY The U.S. dollar was broadly firmer early on Tuesday and at decade-highs against its Canadian peer, which along with the Norwegian crown slid sharply on the back of a tumble in oil prices.The greenback jumped to C$1.3524 CAD=D4, reaching a high not seen since mid-2004. It...

>TOKYO Asian stock markets teetered near their weakest levels in three weeks on Tuesday, as a rout in oil prices to near seven-year lows knocked global energy company shares and commodity currencies. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell 0.4 percent, erasing all the gains made...

>Newell's shares closed up 7.4 percent at $48.16, while Jarden's shares ended 3.7 percent higher at $50.09 on Monday.The terms under discussion could not be learned, and it is possible the talks will not lead to a deal, the WSJ said on Monday.Both Newell...

>DUBAI Cisco’s (CSCO.O) executive chairman on Monday declined to say whether it would cede to China’s demands to be able to control equipment deployed in the world’s largest internet market, instead pledging to find a “win-win” solution. The world’s top maker of switching equipment and routers that run the...

>WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has taken the lead in the early-voting state of Iowa, surpassing both Donald Trump, who holds the lead in most national surveys, and Ben Carson, who has scored strongly in the state in recent months, according to a Monmouth University poll released on Monday.

>WASHINGTON Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States in the most dramatic response by a candidate yet to last week's shooting spree by two Muslims who the FBI said had been radicalized."We have no choice," Trump said at a...

>WASHINGTON Violent extremists’ use of encryption to evade law enforcement in communicating online will be examined by a task force proposed by a Republican lawmaker on Monday, adding to pressures on Silicon Valley to do more in fighting militant groups.Citing concerns about violent extremists communicating in potentially undetectable "dark...

>Feinstein, a California senator and the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, had included the legislation as an amendment into an intelligence authorization bill, but it was not included in the version voted on by the full Senate.Deadly attacks in Paris last month and in San Bernardino, California,...

>WASHINGTON The United States is temporarily easing trade restrictions on Myanmar by allowing all shipments to go through its ports and airports for six months, an effort to boost the Southeast Asian country's opposition party after its landmark election win in November, U.S. officials said on Monday. The policy...

>LONDON U.S. buyout fund Hellman & Friedman has agreed to buy Italian software firm TeamSystem [THSI.UL] in a deal which values the business at about 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion), a source with direct knowledge of the matter said. TeamSystem has been backed by London-based private...

>WASHINGTON The growing influence of Hispanic voters in the United States could be blunted by a case coming before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in which two voters backed by a conservative group are challenging the way Texas draws electoral districts.At issue is whether these districts should...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by gun rights activists to a Chicago suburb's ordinance banning assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, handing a victory to gun control advocates amid a fierce debate over the nation's firearms laws.The 2013 ordinance passed by the city of...

>FRANKFURT NXP has completed its nearly $12 billion deal to buy Freescale, doubling the proportion of auto-related revenue to 40 percent to create the world's top maker of automotive electronics, it said on Monday. Faltering demand in computer and phone markets, once semiconductor industry mainstays, have fueled a year-long merger...

>Chinese researchers have developed what they say is the country's first car that uses nothing but brain power to drive.    The research team from Nankai University, in the north-eastern Chinese port city of Tianjin, has spent two years bringing the mind-controlled vehicle to reality.    By wearing brain signal-reading...

>ISTANBUL/ERBIL Turkey said on Monday it would not withdraw hundreds of soldiers who arrived last week at a base in northern Iraq, despite being ordered by Baghdad to pull them out within 48 hours.The sudden arrival of such a large and heavily armed Turkish contingent in a camp near...

>With unemployment low, policymakers have justified a liftoff of interest rates on the basis of "reasonable confidence" that inflation will rise to two percent and meet the Fed's second policy goal."We are concerned about all the variables ... The main one is particularly the inflation variable. We have to see...

>CHICAGO Illinois has bent or broken every sound budgeting practice and should adopt reforms to help dig its way out of a huge pile of debt, according to a report released by the University of Illinois on Monday.The report by the Fiscal Futures Project at the university's Institute of...

>In an opinion piece for German daily Die Welt, Lagarde said the price of greenhouse gas emissions should be at the center of efforts to tackle climate change."With a fairer carbon price, energy savings will be encouraged and demand strengthened for cleaner energy sources and 'greener' investments," Lagarde wrote,...

>Europe's JAB Holding Co is leading a $13.9 billion buyout of Keurig Green Mountain Inc in a deal that would give it 60 percent control of North America's single-serve coffee market and advance its ambitions to build a global coffee powerhouse. The transaction, pitched at a rich 78 percent...

>Wall Street started the week in the red as energy and raw material stocks took a hit, with oil prices falling to their lowest in nearly seven years.Brent crude prices LCOc1 dropped to $41.38 and U.S. crude CLc1 fell to $38.15 a barrel, after OPEC's meeting...

>SINGAPORE France's CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container shipping firm, made on Monday a S$3.4 billion ($2.43 billion) offer to buy Singapore's Neptune Orient Lines (NEPS.SI) to expand its presence on trans-Pacific routes. CMA CGM offered S$1.30 a share in cash, 6 percent above NOL's last...

>The deal offers around seven times Storks' annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 100 million euros ($109 million), the companies said.Stork's main business is in modifying and maintaining large gas, oil and power plants.Fluor said the acquisition would combine well with its own operations...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders unveiled a climate change plan on Monday that seeks to end the country's dependence on oil, coal and nuclear energy and could pressure party front-runner Hillary Clinton.The Vermont senator's plan envisions 10 million new jobs in clean energy such as wind,...

>WASHINGTON Republican presidential candidates roundly criticized President Barack Obama's Sunday night address to the nation about the U.S. response to the threat of terror, arguing that he lacked a vision and was not aggressive enough. Republicans have become increasingly critical of the president's handling of Islamic State, or ISIS,...

>WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Sunday laid out the most sweeping defense yet of his strategy to defeat Islamic State, but he offered no U.S. policy shift to confront what he called a "new phase" in the terrorist threat after a mass shooting in California.In a rare Oval Office...

>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK President Barack Obama on Sunday called on Silicon Valley to help address the threat of militant groups using social media and electronic communications to plan and promote violence, setting up renewed debate over personal privacy online."I will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder...

>The epicenter of the quake was 111 km (65 miles) southwest of Karakul, the USGS said. (Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Douglas Busvine, Nick Macfie)...

>"That is not on the agenda of the coalition and the NATO allies," he told the Tages-Anzeiger paper when asked about dispatching ground forces to accompany air strikes."The United States has a limited number of special forces. In the foreground, however, is strengthening local forces. This is not easy,...

>CARACAS Venezuela's opposition trounced the ruling Socialists on Sunday to win the legislature for the first time in 16 years and gain a long-sought platform to challenge President Nicolas Maduro's rule of the OPEC nation. The opposition Democratic Unity coalition won 99 seats to the Socialists' 46 in the 167-national...

>While the headline reading missed expectations in a Reuters forecast for a 0.7 percent rise, it came after a 1.1 percent fall in September - output's steepest drop in more than a year.A 5.9 percent decline in monthly energy production held overall industrial output back in...

>SYDNEY Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday unveiled a A$1.1 billion ($806 million) package to boost innovation in Australia, using his first major economic policy statement since becoming leader to map out a pathway beyond the country's fading resources boom.The plan's incentives include reductions in the capital gains...

>TOKYO Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday he saw no need to implement negative deposit rates in Japan as borrowing costs were already very low due to the central bank's aggressive asset purchases.The European Central Bank has adopted negative deposit rates to penalize financial institutions for...

>The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court in July to stop Electrolux, which makes Frigidaire, Kenmore and Tappan appliances, from buying GE's appliance business and has said the deal would push prices up by five percent."Electrolux has made extensive efforts to obtain regulatory approvals, and regrets...

>SYDNEY Asian share markets turned mixed on Monday as caution grew ahead of Chinese data, though sentiment stayed supported by hopes the U.S. economy would be able to handle an expected first increase in interest rates in almost a decade.Oil prices were near their lowest since 2009 in...