News Archive - 6 January 2016

>SEOUL/WASHINGTON North Korea said it successfully tested a nuclear bomb on Wednesday, drawing threats of further sanctions even though the United States and weapons experts voiced doubts the device was as advanced as the isolated nation claimed. The underground explosion triggered U.S. quake monitors and angered China, putting pressure...

>Mitsubishi Motors confirmed a report in Japan's Nikkei newspaper on Thursday, which said that the automaker was unable to find a buyer for its factory in Normal, Illinois, and take on its workers. "We have given up looking for an automaker to buy the plant, but we are looking for...

>NEW YORK Wall Street has started the new year where it ended 2015, with a host of factors unnerving investors. U.S. stocks have fallen 4.2 percent in the last five sessions, and there’s little reason for optimism amidst the international threats and corporate weakness that have prompted accelerated...

>The potential offers are being considered as bankers say falling market valuations and higher interest rate expectations are set to stoke prospects for mergers and acquisitions in the city state's property trust sector. The target, which has a market value of $600 million, is a 'stapled trust' comprising Ascendas Hospitality...

>The layoffs, which would result in more than 1,000 people leaving the tech giant, is set to affect Yahoo's media business, European operations, and platforms-technology group, Business Insider said on Wednesday.This move follows activist investor Starboard Value LP's letter to Yahoo on Wednesday ramping up pressure on Yahoo, taking...

>The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on its website it had ordered Shanghai Chang Gou Enterprise Services to withdraw from the market after finding the company had misappropriated clients' money, concealed capital flows, and refused inspections.It said police were now dealing with the firms' bosses and its debts...

>MEREDITH, N.H. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Wednesday ruled out a third-party candidacy should Donald Trump win the party's 2016 nomination but held tight to his belief that Trump is a "jerk" and not qualified to be president.At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire,...

>TOKYO Asian stocks fell to a three-month low on Thursday after China opted to keep guiding the yuan sharply lower, deepening concerns about the economy and the potential for competitive devaluations by other countries. Shanghai shares .SSEC tanked more than 7 percent and trading was halted as the fall triggered...

>Trading on China's stock markets were suspended for the rest of the day, for the second time this week, as a new circuit-breaking mechanism was tripped less than half an hour after the open.The People's Bank of China again surprised markets by setting the official midpoint rate on the...

>NEW YORK Donald Trump can stay on the campaign trail and will not have to testify in a trademark dispute with an Internet marketing company, which a U.S. judge on Wednesday said was trying to "harass" the Republican presidential candidate.The marketing firm, Trump Your Competition Inc, had sought...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Congress on Wednesday approved legislation dismantling President Barack Obama's signature health care plan, putting on his desk an election-year measure that faces a certain veto.Republicans have been vowing to gut the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," since 2010, when the then Democratic-majority Congress...

>BEIJING China is building underground caverns capable of holding up to a quarter of its expanded strategic oil reserves by 2020, as it looks for new storage methods away from expensive and exposed above-ground tanks in crowded coastal regions.In a move to improve its energy security and take advantage...

>Cook's base pay increased about 14.4 percent to $2 million last year, while non-equity incentive compensation rose about 19 percent to $8 million, according to a regulatory filing.Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri's annual compensation rose about 81 percent to $25.3 million in 2015.Apple had a good...

>U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were trading at $34.23 per barrel at 0026 GMT, up 26 cents from their last settlement but within half a dollar of 2009 lows reached on Wednesday at $33.77 per barrel."Data suggest gasoline and distillate fuel stockpiles increased 10.6...

>Without citing its sources, Germany's daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the company expected it would have to either refund the purchase price of a fifth of the diesel vehicles affected or offer a new car at a significant discount.Volkswagen expects that the rest of the vehicles will need major refits,...

>TORONTO Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS.TO), Canada's third biggest lender, is in discussions to sell a C$1 billion ($715 million) vendor and equipment financing portfolio, according to four sources familiar with the matter.Scotiabank, which began the sale process a few weeks ago, is in talks with several parties...

>CALGARY/WASHINGTON TransCanada Corp sued the U.S government on Wednesday to reverse President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, and also plans to seek $15 billion in damages from a trade tribunal.TranCanada's lawsuit in a federal court in Houston, Texas, called rejection of its permit to build...

>Global growth should accelerate to 2.9 percent this year from 2.4 percent in 2015, the bank said, but that still represents a downgrade from its June forecast for 3.3 percent growth.The bank raised particular concern about the flagging performance of top emerging economies."Given the size...

>In a Jan. 6 letter to the Surface Transportation Board, senior Democrats on the House Transportation Committee warned that an acquisition would reduce competition and exacerbate shipper concerns about costs.The Surface Transportation Board, which can approve or disapprove acquisitions in the railroad industry, could not immediately be reached for...

>NEW YORK The global Twitterati set their sights on Twitter on Wednesday, widely decrying a reported plan by the microblogging site to blow out its length limit to as much as 10,000 characters.The plan, first reported by Re/code late on Tuesday, sparked huge traffic on the hashtag #Twitter10k, with...

>The company said it expects to generate about $400 million in savings beginning this year.Macy's shares rose 3.7 percent to $37.51 in after market trading. Warm weather, low spending by tourists and a pileup of unsold inventory prompted Macy's to cut its full-year forecast in November, raising...

>WASHINGTON Federal Reserve policymakers decided to raise interest rates last month after almost all of them gained confidence inflation was poised to rise, but some voiced worries inflation could get stuck at dangerously low levels."Nearly all participants were now reasonably confident inflation would move back to 2 percent over...

>In afternoon trading, the stock briefly traded as low as $96.96, its lowest level since Aug. 24, a day when the entire stock market suffered a brief "flash crash." Apple shares traded as low as $92 that day.Apple shares have not closed below $100 since Oct. 20,...

>Netflix Inc's video-streaming services went live in more than 130 countries on Wednesday, covering almost the entire globe except China, in a huge global push by Chief Executive Reed Hastings to counter slowing growth at home.Shares of the company, whose popular shows include "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", "Daredevil" and "Narcos",...

>The timing of the investment was not immediately clear but the governor said next year's budget, which he will announce in an annual keynote address next week, would contain $7 billion of spending on upstate regions.This is the "largest investment in upstate New York in history. Period," Cuomo told...

>The company's shares were up 5.5 percent at $113.60 in early afternoon trading.The move confirmed months of speculation on the launch of the service in the second-most populous country in the world.The company will also offer two other plans priced at 650 rupees and 800 rupees,...

>That pace is faster than the regional Fed's prior estimate of 0.7 percent growth on Monday, the Atlanta Fed said on its website. The government reported the trade gap shrank to $42.4 billion in November from an upwardly revised $44.6 billion in October. This resulted in the...

>Spirit Airlines Inc (SAVE.O) on Tuesday named board member Robert Fornaro as chief executive officer in a move analysts say may nudge it towards a merger with Frontier Airlines and improve its results after a year of unit revenue decline.Fornaro headed AirTran Holdings Inc for nearly four years...

>WASHINGTON Republican U.S. presidential candidates on Wednesday blamed President Barack Obama's "failed" foreign policy for North Korea's nuclear arms activities, with front-runner Donald Trump urging China to rein in its ally or face repercussions on trade.North Korea said it tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear device on Wednesday on...

>On New Year's day alone, customers spent more than $144 million, breaking the previous single-day record set on Christmas Day.Customers bought apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV worth over $20 billion on the App Store in 2015, Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide...

>The Commerce Department said on Wednesday new orders for manufactured goods slipped 0.2 percent after a downwardly revised 1.3 percent gain in October. The decline was in line with economists' expectations. Orders were previously reported to have increased 1.5 percent in October. The report added to weak...

>WASHINGTON U.S. private companies added workers at a brisk clip in December, pointing to underlying strength in the economy despite signs that growth slowed sharply in the fourth quarter.Other data on Wednesday showed a slight moderation in services sector activity last month. The trade deficit also narrowed in...

>The Commission said in a statement it had concluded that the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given the absence of horizontal overlaps and the limited vertical relationships between the activities of the two companies. The purchase is Berkshire's largest, and accelerates its transformation from a company largely dependent...

>Shares of Yahoo, which owns a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, were down 1.5 percent at $31.71 in premarket trading.In a letter to Yahoo's board, Starboard said the Internet company should separate its Asia assets - its stakes in Alibaba and...

>TAIPEI Foxconn, which assembles most of Apple Inc's latest iPhones, will cut working hours over the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, a person familiar with the matter said, in a rare move that analysts interpreted as a sign of softening demand.Reports of slowing shipments and mounting inventories of the...

>The two flights are likely to spark further condemnation from Vietnam, which launched a formal diplomatic protest over the weekend, and the Philippines, which said it was planning to do the same. Both countries have claims to the area that overlap with that of China, which claims almost the whole...

>FRANKFURT The European Central Bank identified how banks make money and their poor earnings as 2016's main sources of risk in the sector, signaling that capital robustness is no longer a main concern for the euro zone's top banking supervisor. Banks have long complained that ever-rising capital demands from the...

>The fine, imposed by the BTK communications technologies authority, was the first of its kind imposed by Ankara on Twitter. It has temporarily banned the site several times in the past after it failed to comply with requests to remove content. (Reporting by Ercan Gurses; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing...

>Riyadh and Tehran, which support opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, have attended previous talks on the conflict but there is concern that the new rift between the arch rivals could set back diplomatic efforts to bring peace to Syria. Speaking after talks in Riyadh with U.N. special...

>The militant group, which has claimed responsibility for attacks in the kingdom and stepped up operations in neighboring Yemen, singled out the al-Ha'ir and Tarfiya prisons where many al Qaeda and Islamic State supporters have been detained."The Islamic State always seeks to free prisoners, but we calculate that the...

>PARIS One year on, an anxious, fragmented France is paying tribute to the victims of the killings at Charlie Hebdo magazine, with old divisions made worse by what President Francois Hollande has called "a terrible year". After the Islamist attacks that killed 17 on January 7-9 last year at the...

>GM and its Chinese joint venture partners sold 445,227 vehicles last month, a 14 percent rise from a year earlier, matching its growth rate for November.The automaker plans to launch 13 new or revamped models in China in 2016, including the Cadillac CT6, Malibu XL and Cruze XL, compared...