News Archive - 20 December 2015

>TORONTO Canadian diplomats were allowed to meet a Canadian pastor soon after he was sentenced to life in prison in North Korea last week and found him in good spirits and health, a church spokeswoman said on Sunday.Hyeon Soo Lim, held by North Korea since February, was sentenced to...

>SYDNEY Asian share markets got off to a lackluster start on Monday following a dive on Wall Street, though losses were limited by a general lack of investor interest in a holiday-heavy week.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was flat, while Australia's main index eased 0.

>The two companies will aim for a corporate structure that enhances their development capabilities that enable them to create unique products and provides solutions by gathering both companies' technological capabilities, Minebea said in a statement. The integration is expected to be complete by April 2017 and Minebea's Chief Executive Yoshihisa...

>The Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) owns around 70 percent of Renesas and, based on an earlier agreement with the company made at its initial investment, will be free to sell some or all of its stake from September."I don't think INCJ would sell a majority of Renesas...

>The laptops-to-nuclear conglomerate said it would also sell its TV manufacturing plant in Indonesia. Due to costs of restructuring, which also include the sale of its TV manufacturing plant in Indonesia, Toshiba said it expected a net loss of around 550 billion yen ($4.53 billion) in this fiscal year...

>WASHINGTON/MUSCAT As the United States negotiated this year’s nuclear pact with Iran, the State Department quietly agreed to spare the Gulf sultanate of Oman from an embarrassing public rebuke over its human rights record, rewarding a close Arab ally that helped broker the historic deal.    In a highly unusual...

>The ECB cut its deposit rate earlier this month and extended its asset purchase program in a bid to bring inflation in the euro zone, currently just above zero, back to its target of almost 2 percent."It (the ECB) will pursue an accommodative monetary policy for as long as...

>FORT LAUDERDALE/NEW YORK/SEATTLE/VANCOUVERU.S. and Canadian officials have pledged to work with China to track down and repatriate Chinese fugitives living abroad. But that cooperation is proving to have clear limits.So far, only one person on China's Operation Sky Net list of 100 most wanted fugitives - 46 of...

>WASHINGTON Locked in budget talks in the twilight of his Senate career, Harry Reid saw an unexpected opening to bargain for his legislative wish list.It had become apparent to Senate Democratic Majority Leader Reid that lifting the longstanding ban on U.S. oil exports was the Republicans' top priority...

>Panasonic agreed to buy the stake from Clayton Dubilier & Rice, said the people, who declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak with media on the matter.Clayton Dubilier & Rice bought the stake from industrial conglomerate Ingersoll-Rand PLC (IR.N) in 2011. After exiting unprofitable...

>The Nikkei business daily reported over the weekend the company is expected to forecast a record net loss of more than 500 billion yen ($4.13 billion) for the fiscal year on restructuring costs. The company said the report was not based on any official announcement but added that if...

>It had been unable to confirm for weeks if it could meet the Dec. 20 deadline required under a 1969 law for the seasonal bonus. The payments total about $120 million, government officials said earlier this month.Bonuses will be paid to government officials and regular employees of at least...

>TOKYO The dollar was steady in Asian trading on Monday, as holiday calm replaced the previous week's heavy market action driven by monetary policy moves in the United States and Japan. Trading was likely to be subdued with many market participants already away for the Christmas holiday later this week,...

>The Bank of Portugal said that the deal agreed with Santander Totta, Portuguese and European authorities allowed to safeguard financial stability, deposits and senior debt of Banif, as it involved an injection of 2.255 billion euros "to cover future contingencies".Portugal's Bank Resolution Fund, to which all financial institutions...

>"It was hacked," Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, said in an email. "We have been working with Twitter to get it fixed."Shkreli, who gained notoriety this year when Turing hiked the price of an anti-infective drug often taken by people with AIDS,...

>SINGAPORE U.S. crude oil prices dipped in early Asian trading on Monday, heading towards last week's 2015 lows as a rebound in drilling activity, a strong dollar and brimming storage facilities weighed on prices.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WI) crude futures were trading at $34.48 per barrel...

>But Weale, who was one of two BoE rate-setters who pushed unsuccessfully in late 2014 for higher borrowing costs, also said rates would probably have to rise sooner than financial markets currently imply, the newspaper quoted him as saying. (Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Dominic Evans)...

>The price, for regular grade as of Friday, was the lowest since $2.05 in April 2009 as oil prices continued to slide, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said.U.S. crude prices have dropped 17 percent in December. Gas prices have averaged $2.48 this year, down from $3.37...

>"We are looking at a variety of objects," Li Keping, who also serves as CIC's vice chairman and president, told Handelsblatt in an interview, excerpts of which were published on Sunday.He said the fund, which manages about $750 billion of China's foreign exchange reserves, was particularly interested in firms...

>WASHINGTON U.S. presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump said separately on Sunday that the United States should not try to topple dictators such as Syria's Bashar al-Assad, highlighting a skepticism over foreign wars that transcends party lines.Both candidates said the Middle East would be less tumultuous today...

>DIYARBAKIR Armed clashes persisted on Sunday across Turkey's southeast, where an operation by Turkish forces intensified on the sixth day of a campaign that security sources said had resulted in the death of 110 Kurdish militants.Protests erupted in Istanbul and in Diyarbakir, the biggest city in the country's south...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders apologized to front-runner Hillary Clinton at a debate on Saturday for a breach of Clinton voter files by a Sanders staffer that intensified tensions between the two camps.The Sanders campaign also suspended two staffers in connection with the breach, a campaign...

>Analysts believe the latest round of talks represented the best chance yet to end the conflict given months of stalemate in ground combat and the rise of Islamic State militants, who threaten both sides."The first round of Yemeni discussions ended with an agreement for them to be revived ... in...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that Democrat Hillary Clinton was a "liar" for claiming that his proposal to ban entry of all foreign Muslims into the United States has aided Islamic State's propaganda efforts.Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Trump said Clinton had...

>BEIRUT An Israeli air strike killed Hezbollah militant leader Samir Qantar in Damascus early on Sunday, the Lebanese group and Syrian state media said. Israel welcomed Qantar's death, saying he had been preparing attacks on it from Syrian soil, but stopped short of confirming responsibility for the strike that killed...

>They said at least six strikes had hit a busy market place in the heart of the city, several government buildings and residential areas. Rescue workers said they had confirmed 43 dead but that at least 30 more bodies had been retrieved that had still to be identified."There are...

>NAIROBI The World Trade Organization reached deals on agricultural export subsidies, food aid and other issues on Saturday, capping a ministerial conference in the Kenyan capital where rich and poor countries had been split over the path of trade reform.Members said the Nairobi deal had drawn a line under...

>NEW YORK Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceuticals entrepreneur vilified for jacking up the price of a life-saving AIDS drug, said on Saturday that unrelated securities fraud allegations that resulted in his arrest this week were "baseless and without merit."Federal prosecutors have alleged that Shkreli was running a Ponzi-like scheme at...