News Archive - 16 March 2016

>Oil producers including Gulf OPEC members support holding talks next month on a deal to freeze output even if Iran declines to participate, OPEC sources said, as political pressure to prop up prices increases.OPEC and non-OPEC producers will meet in Doha on April 17, Qatari Energy Minister Mohammed bin...

>Apple currently also uses Amazon.com Inc's and Microsoft Corp's cloud services, but intends to end its reliance on all its rivals in the next few years, Recode said. The iPhone maker is spending between $400 million and $600 million on Google's cloud services, tech magazine CRN reported, adding that...

>ATLANTA A religious freedom bill described by opponents as being discriminatory against same-sex couples passed the Georgia state legislature on Wednesday night in an 11th hour vote ahead of the session's close. The legislation, dubbed the Religious Liberty Bill, still has to be signed by Georgia's Republican Governor Nathan Deal...

>BRASILIA/SAO PAULO Protests erupted in several Brazilian cities on Wednesday after President Dilma Rousseff named her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva chief of staff and a taped conversation fed opposition claims the move was meant to shield Lula from prosecution.In the capital Brasilia, riot police fired pepper spray...

>HOUSTON Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Saudi Aramco announced plans on Wednesday to break up Motiva Enterprises LLC in a deal that ends a partnership of nearly two decades and hands control of the biggest U.S. refinery to the Saudi state oil giant.News that the two energy...

>BRUSSELS Leaders of the European Union meet in Brussels on Thursday to agree on a deal to offer Turkey the following day that would secure Ankara's commitment to a scheme intended to halt migrant flows to the Greek islands.A year into a crisis in which more than a million...

>TOKYO Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said there is room to cut interest rates further to support the economy, countering a growing suspicion that public criticism over January's shift to negative rates will prevent him from persisting with the policy.Kuroda made the comment in parliament on Wednesday, a...

>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. United Launch Alliance last year refused to bid on a launch service contract for the U.S. military's next-generation GPS satellite because it was hoping to avoid a “cost shootout” with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to a ULA vice president.The statements by ULA vice president of...

>Nike made the announcement at a glitzy event in New York at which it also launched a series of new products including self-lacing shoes, transparent air-filled soles and soccer cleats made from a polymer that prevents mud from sticking to the sole.Nike was a pioneer in fitness tracking, teaming...

>WASHINGTON President Barack Obama imposed sweeping new sanctions on North Korea on Wednesday intended to further isolate the country's leadership after recent actions by Pyongyang that have been seen by Washington and its allies as provocative.The executive order freezes any property of the North Korean government in the United...

>Oil producers including Gulf OPEC members support holding talks next month on a deal to keep production at current levels even if Iran declines to participate, OPEC sources said on Wednesday, increasing the likelihood of the first global supply deal in 15 years.U.S. crude CLc1 was up 76...

>TOKYO Asian shares gained early on Thursday and the dollar was on the defensive after suffering substantial losses following the U.S. Federal Reserve's move to reduce the number of interest rate hikes planned for this year.The potential for more money to continue flowing into commodities and equities, rather...

>The unit which makes chemicals used in sun lotion and paint could be valued at more than $3.5 billion, according to the source. The Wall Street Journal had first reported the deal earlier Wednesday.The deal could be reached in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported. Air...

>The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California charged Ryan Collins, 36, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, according to court documents filed on Tuesday. Collins signed a plea agreement to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He faces up to five years in...

>"We are informing Congress today that we're not going to make that deadline," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news briefing."We certainly respect the deadlines that Congress lays down on specific reports, or in this case decisions about genocide," he said. "However, we also take the process very...

>TOKYO The dollar nursed losses in Asian trading on Thursday after declining sharply following the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to halve its outlook for interest rate hikes to two from four by the end of this year.Fed policymakers noted that the U.S. economy faces risks from an...

>SandRidge Energy Inc (SDOC.PK) said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday that it has made $50.1 million in interest payments, as it continues to work with creditors on debt restructuring options.The Oklahoma City-based oil and gas company, hurt by the...

>The ruling on Tuesday from the Dusseldorf District Court said Apple products sold in Germany must not use streaming software which infringes OpenTV's patents. (Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt; Editing by Leslie Adler)...

>Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Assistant Governor Guy Debelle said on Thursday the first part of the two-part code would be released in late May and would include "mechanisms" to encourage all participants to adhere to the principles."The concrete details of the adherence mechanisms remain a work in process,"...

>Shareholders of JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N) will get to vote on whether their banks should consider breaking into smaller pieces.Citigroup included the question in a proxy statement it filed on Wednesday for its annual meeting next month, and the shareholder sponsoring that...

>The show of support comes the day after Haley's first pick, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, dropped out of the race following a devastating loss in his home state of Florida's primary. (Reporting by Alana Wise; Editing by James Dalgleish)...

>PRAGUE/FRANKFURT Two Czech firms have submitted bids for Vattenfall's loss-making lignite coal mines and associated power plants in Germany, but to reach a deal the Swedish state-owned group might have to pay into covering future decommissioning costs.The sale, launched at the end of 2014, includes roughly 8,100 megawatts (MW)...

>BRUSSELS/DUBLIN - European Union antitrust regulators have asked Ireland to provide further details on the country's tax deal with Apple before deciding whether this constitutes illegal state aid to the iPhone maker.The European Commission, which has been investigating the Apple deal for more than two years, said on Wednesday...

>SEOUL North Korea's supreme court sentenced American student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested while visiting the country, to 15 years of hard labor on Wednesday for crimes against the state.Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student, was detained in January for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda...

>Cyber criminals launched a malicious advertising campaign this week targeting visitors of popular news and entertainment websites after gaining ownership of an expired web domain of an advertising company.Users visiting the websites of the New York Times, Newsweek, BBC and AOL, among others, may have installed malware on their...

>LONDON State-run conglomerate China Merchants Group [CNMGP.UL] has made an informal bid to buy London's Baltic Exchange, becoming the latest contender for the business that has been the hub of the global shipping market for centuries, two sources told Reuters. The approach was made by the group's subsidiary China...

>RMEILAN, Syria Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria are expected to declare a federal system imminently, Kurdish officials said on Wednesday, taking matters into their own hands after being excluded from talks in Geneva to resolve Syria's civil war.The step aims to combine three Kurdish-led autonomous areas of northern Syrian...

>Sweden's Cevian, ABB and Boston Consulting declined to comment.Talk of breaking up ABB has swirled for months as Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer has come under pressure from ABB's two biggest shareholders, Sweden's Investor AB with 10 percent of shares and Cevian with at least 5 percent. ABB officials have...

>WASHINGTON Merrick Garland, the federal appeals court judge picked by President Barack Obama for the Supreme Court, was twice before considered as a nominee for the lifetime job as a justice but passed over when Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.Garland, 63, has been a judge on the...

>BRUSSELS Belgian authorities identified the gunman killed in a raid targeting suspects in the Paris attacks as a 35-year-old Algerian and said police had detained two others while finding an Islamic State flag at the scene.Investigators believe much of the planning and preparation for the Nov. 13 shooting and...

>RMEILAN, Syria/GENEVA, Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria were expected to imminently declare a federal system, a move likely to further complicate peace talks in Geneva on ending more than five years of war.Russia pulled more warplanes out of Syria, a new delivery of humanitarian aid reached northern Aleppo province...

>Osborne, whose chances of becoming prime minister are tied to the fortunes of the economy, also announced sharply lower growth forecasts, blaming the slowdown in the global economy and weak productivity growth at home.Delivering an annual budget statement to parliament, Osborne said the outlook for the economy would be...

>WASHINGTON Underlying U.S. inflation increased more than expected in February as rents and medical costs maintained their upward trend, which could keep the Federal Reserve on course to gradually raise interest rates this year.Other data on Wednesday showed the housing market continuing to strengthen last month, with groundbreaking...

>In a letter to the conglomerate, Fujifilm cited media reports saying profits from the sale would contribute to Toshiba's finances in the fiscal year through March, and questioned whether the deal would close in time for that. Fujifilm disclosed the contents of the letter to the media.The move is...

>FRANKFURT/LONDON Deutsche Boerse AG (DB1Gn.DE) and London Stock Exchange Group Plc (LSE) (LSE.L) agreed to combine in a $30 billion deal to create a European trading powerhouse better able to compete with U.S. rivals encroaching on their turf.But the deal, which marks a third attempt to...

>This is potentially dangerous for the world economy because after nearly a decade of unprecedented stimulus to revive the global economy and financial system, the effectiveness of central banks' policy measures is fading.The slowdown in the velocity of money is being blamed on a range of factors including the...

>U.S. stock indexes were little changed on Wednesday as investors awaited the outcome of a Federal Reserve meeting on monetary policy.While the central bank is expected to leave interest rates unchanged, investors will keep a close eye on its commentary for clues on the path of future hikes.

>MOSCOW Russian oil firm Rosneft said on Wednesday it had signed a series of documents on selling stakes in Russian oil fields to Indian firms during a visit by its CEO Igor Sechin to India.The deals mean that Rosneft, which needs to pay off debts incurred in its $55...

>LONDON Respiratory drug specialist Vectura (VEC.L) has agreed to buy rival SkyePharma (SKP.L) for 441 million pounds ($621 million), in a notable piece of consolidation among Britain's universe of small biotech companies.The tie-up will create a lung disease group with expertise across different inhaler technologies and a...

>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK As Donald Trump inches closer to becoming the U.S. Republican nominee, many of the party's big donors fear they will tarnish their reputations should they contribute to a candidate who has insulted women, Hispanics and Muslims.Some flatly reject the notion of ever funding his campaign.In...

>The emergence of rivals including ride-sharing company Uber [UBER.UL] and technology group Alphabet (GOOGL.O) which has developed its own self-driving car, has prompted BMW to rethink its traditional strategy of selling large powerful luxury cars."We are leading BMW Group into a new era," Chief Executive Harald Krueger...

>NEW DELHI India's parliament is set to pass legislation that gives federal agencies access to the world's biggest biometric database in the interests of national security, raising fears the privacy of a billion people could be compromised.The move comes as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cracks down on...

>The sequence of posts would be based on the likelihood of interest in the content, the user's relationship with the person or timeliness of the post, Instagram said in a blog post.On an average, users miss 70 percent of their feeds, Instagram added.Instagram is the latest addition to...

>Sino-Japanese ties have long been plagued by conflicting claims over a group of uninhabited East China Sea islets. Last year, Japan called on China to halt construction of oil-and-gas exploration platforms in the East China Sea.At the time, Tokyo accused Beijing of unilateral development despite a 2008 agreement to...

>LONDON The combination of a slow-growth world of shrinking policy options and the splintered political voting patterns it's fostered is stifling the global economy at a critical juncture.Preying on the minds of financial markets for the past year has been a fear that there's no big economic policy bazooka...

>The attack took place on a main road after the bus picked up government workers from districts surrounding Peshawar and was transporting them to work in the city.Senior police official Mohammad Kashif said 15 people were killed and 35 wounded. A hospital official said the death toll was likely...

>The Chinese government has largely refrained from commenting on the U.S. election campaign, saying it is an internal matter for the American people, despite attacks on China by real estate mogul and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.Trump has frequently accused China of stealing jobs and portrayed himself as...

>The warplanes included an Il-76 transport plane as well as Su-25 jets, it added. (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)...

>TOKYO Japanese blue-chip firms on Wednesday announced wage hikes far below last year's increases, a blow to "Abenomics" stimulus policy at a time fears of a deepening global slowdown and jittery markets are denting business sentiment.Bellwether Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and some other leading manufacturers agreed to raise...

>BEIJING China's Premier Li Keqiang defended the country's economic policies on Wednesday, repeating well-worn lines that there was more opportunity than risk and vowing there would be no hard landing for the world's second-largest economy if the government presses ahead with reforms.China will cut red tape for businesses, work...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday as it balances continued concerns about the health of the global economy with fresh signs that domestic inflation is starting to rear its head.The central bank, which hiked rates in December for the first...