News Archive - 1 April 2016

>WASHINGTON President Barack Obama warned on Friday of a persistent threat of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear materials despite progress in reducing such risks, and called on world leaders to do more to safeguard nuclear facilities.“There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on...

>WASHINGTON Republican front-runner Donald Trump is facing pressure from supporters and other admirers to take a more serious approach to his U.S. presidential campaign, worried that a string of missteps may do lasting damage.Those who have marveled at Trump's ability to soar to the top are cautioning the...

>Laboratory unit workers, who make up about 10 percent of the 700 United Steelworkers union (USW) members working hourly jobs at Baytown, joined with refinery and chemical plant workers who had accepted the four-year extension in voting on March 24 and 25. "Their resolve through the extension has made them...

>(IFR) - Emerging markets are fast losing their shine for the world’s biggest investment banks. Faced with falling fees from fewer deals – and bleak prospects ahead – many have put the brakes on a decade-long expansion, with some cutting jobs and shutting offices.Subdued deal activity has meant there...

>Time Inc (TIME.N) is considering partnering with a private equity firm on a bid for Yahoo Inc's (YHOO.O) core Internet assets, according to people familiar with the matter, as the U.S. publishing company seeks to boost its digital presence.The deliberations on finding a partner to help...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. administration is considering a plan to greatly increase the number of American special operations forces deployed to Syria as it looks to accelerate recent gains against Islamic State, U.S. officials told Reuters.The officials, with direct knowledge of the proposal's details, declined to disclose the...

>Clinton, the front-runner in the race for the Democratic Party nomination in the Nov. 8 presidential election, has apologized for using a private email server for official business while in office from 2009 to 2013 and said she did nothing wrong. The FBI is investigating the arrangement.On Jan. 29,...

>"What the statements you mentioned tell us, they tell us that the person who made the statements doesn't know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the Korean peninsula, or the world generally," Obama told a news conference at the conclusion of a nuclear security summit. (Reporting by Roberta...

>WASHINGTON Chinese officials have missed their own March deadline to submit a new offer for a proposed investment treaty that would shrink the number of sectors closed to American investors, U.S. officials and China trade watchers said on Friday.The lack of a new "negative list" proposal could make...

>LOUISVILLE, Ky. Three people who claim they were assaulted at a Donald Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky, last month have filed a lawsuit against the Republican presidential candidate, saying he "incited a riot."Molly Shah, Kashiya Nwanguma and Henry Brousseau filed the lawsuit on Thursday in Jefferson Circuit Court in...

>U.S. hospitals should brace for a surge in "ransomware" attacks by cyber criminals who infect and shut down computer networks, then demand payment in return for unlocking them, a non-profit healthcare group warned on Friday. The Health Information Trust Alliance conducted a study of some 30 mid-sized U.S.

>NEW YORK After enduring several weeks of conflicting comments by Federal Reserve officials that whip-lashed the U.S. stock market, befuddled investors could get a dose of clarity next week on where the Fed stands on its path toward rate hikes.Minutes of the Fed's March meeting will be released...

>The investment was announced at a media conference in Barbados attended by principals from the financial firm, Barbados-based Bitt, and Overstock, according to a statement from the U.S. retailer."A major impediment to economic advancement around the world is the fact that the vast majority of humans are unbanked,"...

>Anbang Insurance Group Co's unexpected withdrawal this week of its $14 billion offer to acquire Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc is a wider blow to the unprecedented drive by Chinese companies to acquire North American and European assets.From semiconductors and industrial equipment, to financial services and real estate,...

>A Mississippi measure that would allow people with religious objections to deny wedding services to same-sex couples and provide wide protections for actions decried as discriminatory by gay rights advocates passed the state legislature on Friday.Opponents plan a last-ditch attempt to stop the legislation on Monday before it heads...

>BRUSSELS Brussels main airport is likely to reopen on Sunday after police and the government resolved a dispute over security following the March 22 bomb attacks, agreeing that all passengers would be screened on arrival.The airport has not handled passenger flights since two suspected Islamist militants carried out the...

>NEW YORK The Federal Reserve should still raise interest rates gradually this year given the economy's resilience, a top Fed official said on Friday, explaining she did not want to wait too long despite having supported last month's decision to stand pat.In balanced comments that suggested she was poised...

>SAN FRANCISCO Slack has raised $200 million in venture capital financing, boosting its valuation to $3.8 billion, the messaging software startup said on Friday.The latest funding round comes in spite of a contraction in venture capital investing for technology startups, amid widespread concern about high valuations. The market...

>UNITED NATIONS The United Nations special envoy to Yemen on Friday welcomed a recent prisoner swap between the parties to the Yemen conflict and urged them to "engage constructively" in a new round of peace talks set to begin on April 18.Earlier this week, a Saudi-led military coalition said...

>MADRID At the end of a tough quarter, the fraught debate over how policymakers should tackle the world's economic woes gets another airing in the coming week as central banks on both sides of the Atlantic publish minutes.Solid growth in U.S. employment and an unexpected manufacturing uptick in...

>NEW YORK The probability that Republican front-runner Donald Trump will win his party's presidential nomination dropped sharply in the past week while the likelihood of a brokered convention to potentially chose another candidate rose, according to online predictions market PredictIt.Trump's probability of winning the nomination fell to 44 percent...

>Google hastily removed an April Fools' Day feature on Friday that allowed Gmail users to send emails and not see the replies, after the joke fell very flat with some people.The prank, called "Mic Drop," gave users the option of sending emails through a special send button that -...

>WASHINGTON Some social media users raised concerns on Friday over networking forum Reddit's removal from its site of a section that told users it had never received a certain type of surveillance request from the U.S. government.The quiet change, made on Thursday, suggested that Reddit may now be...

>ISTANBUL/ATHENS Migrants protested on a Greek island and rights groups raised legal objections on Friday three days before a disputed EU deal to return rejected asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey was due to go into action, with neither side completely ready.Hundreds of migrants and refugees on the island...

>NEW YORK/SAO PAULO Vale SA is finalizing a proposal to exit a money-losing Brazilian steelmaking venture with Germany's ThyssenKrupp AG, two sources told Reuters, as the world's largest producer of iron ore seeks to focus activities on mining.Under the draft plan, which has yet to be approved by Vale's...

>Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners has agreed to acquire a minority stake in Ancestry.com in a deal that values the privately held genealogy website at $2.6 billion, including debt, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.The investment represents a bet that Ancestry's fast-growing DNA business...

>The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said its index of national factory activity rose to 51.8 from 49.5 the month before. The reading was just above expectations of 50.7 from a Reuters poll of 68 economists.A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector and...

>U.S. Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State, told Pentagon reporters that no Syrian fighters had graduated yet from the new program. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Yeganeh Torbati)...

>The rout in global stock markets earlier this year has dented optimism among even the most bullish of equity market analysts polled by Reuters, who now reckon only half of around 20 major stock markets will gain in the yearWhen interviewed at the end of the first quarter on their...

>An extra-marital affair of a restructuring adviser working for the bankrupt unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp (CZR.O) has cost the casino operator a team of key advisers just as the unit faces a Monday deadline to submit a plan to end its $18 billion bankruptcy. The bankrupt operating unit...

>The hedge fund led by billionaire David Tepper said on Friday it owned 10.88 percent of TerraForm Power as of March 29, up from the 9.50 percent it held as of Jan. 1.TerraForm Power shares were up about 4 percent at $9 in premarket trading.Appaloosa filed...

>"These wealthy investors must take a significant haircut. The people in Puerto Rico should not be asked to suffer even more, so that a handful of wealthy investors can become even wealthier," Sanders said in a statement on Friday. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)...

>The exact timing of the exercise and which ship would travel inside a 12-nautical mile limit around a disputed island was not immediately clear. The United States has conducted what it calls "freedom of navigation" exercises in recent months, sailing near disputed islands to underscore its rights to navigate the...

>AMSTERDAM French, Germans and Britons make up the highest number of foreign fighters in the Syrian rebel ranks from European countries, but Belgium is the largest contributor in proportion to its population, a Dutch study shows.Europeans fighting alongside Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq have been high on the...

>NEW YORK NYSE Arca has suspended trading in eight symbols for the balance of the trading day due to a technical issue, including Amazon.com and both classes of Alphabet Inc shares, according to an alert from the exchange.The alert stated all orders have been canceled back to customers...

>NEW YORK Wall Street's top banks held firm to their expectation for a rate hike in June and expect a total of two hikes this year, a stance little changed from a month ago, according to a Reuters survey conducted on Friday.A strong March jobs report, including notable gains...

>BEIJING Foreign companies with dominant market positions could be increasingly forced to license technology to competitors or face sanctions under China's latest draft antitrust policy guidelines, according to foreign business groups and attorneys.The proposals include a so-called "essential facilities" doctrine, a legal concept that assumes some core infrastructure and...

>Four F-16 fighters destroyed targets in the Zap region this morning, it said. Later, eight F-4 jets hit targets in the Metina region, it said. Turkey has been regularly targeting PKK camps and strongholds in mountainous northern Iraq since a 2-1/2-year-old ceasefire collapsed in July, sparking some of the worst...

>The attack, a day before Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's visit to the largely Kurdish southeast, was one of the larger car bombings in months of violence in the region. (Reporting by Daren Butler; Writing by David Dolan)...

>GENEVA North Korea will pursue its nuclear and ballistic missile program in defiance of the United States and its allies, a top Pyongyang envoy said on Friday, adding that a state of "semi-war" now existed on the divided Korean peninsula.So Se Pyong, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations...

>Wall Street started the second quarter with losses on Friday after data showed U.S. employment rose more than expected in March, a sign of economic strength that could allow the Federal Reserve to gradually raise interest rates this year.Stocks were also under pressure from a 4 percent fall...

>EHarmony on Friday launched a recruitment portal, but the online matchmaker's long-promised service will begin to generate revenue only late this year, a company executive told Reuters.The new website, called Elevated Careers, will be offered free for job seekers for now, while companies looking to hire can sign on...

>The smartphone industry pioneer reported a net loss of $238 million, or 45 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended on Feb. 29, compared with year-earlier profit of $28 million, or 5 cents a share.Excluding one-time items, the company posted a loss of 3 cents a share. Analysts...

>HAWTHORNE, Calif. Tesla Motors gave a sneak preview Thursday of its Model 3 sedan, saying more than 130,000 people had ordered the car, even though it is more than a year away from production.Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of the Model 3 in Hawthorne, California outside...

>NAYPYITAW/YANGON Myanmar's upper house of parliament approved a bill on Friday that gives Aung San Suu Kyi a powerful government role, despite opposition from the military on the second day of her party's new administration.The bill creates the post of state counselor and would allow the Nobel laureate to...

>The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said earlier that the strikes on the Deir al-Asafir district southeast of the Syrian capital on Thursday had mostly killed women and children."France condemns the air strikes carried out by the regime," Nadal told reporters in a weekly briefing. "This attack,...

>WARSAW Central European manufacturing continued to grow in March as a jump in Polish factory activity managed to offset slower growth from Germany, the region's main trade partner.The former communist countries of the European Union's eastern wing rely on demand and investment from richer western Europe, which over the...

>NEW YORK The seven-week U.S. stock market rally still has some room to run and could punch through the record high set by the S&P 500 last May, based on a number of indicators that are pointing the way higher.Among the good signs, the run-up has come with...

>It said NSIG had offered 9.20 euros ($10.49) and a dividend of 0.65 euros per Okmetic share, which represents a premium of close to 30 percent to its closing price on Thursday.The board of Okmetic unanimously recommended shareholders accept the offer. Okmetic shares were up 24...

>The two groups have set Sunday as a new deadline to find an agreement on the sale of Bouygues Telecom to Orange. The deal would cut the number of French telecoms operators from four to three, and would make Bouygues the second-biggest shareholder of Orange after the French state. "We're...

>STOCKHOLM Swedish-based Invisio, which will provide high-tech headsets to French security forces at the Euro 2016 soccer championship this summer, expects military orders in emerging markets to boost revenue further this year.Invisio's headsets are already sold to U.S. and British military forces. The in-ear product turns vibrations from...

>LONDON Investors ended a tough first quarter on a cautious footing, pulling cash out of equity, fixed income and money market funds in the final week, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said on Friday.The main beneficiaries in the week to March 30 were a range fixed income funds -...

>WASHINGTON Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Friday will propose a $10 billion investment in partnerships to encourage the growth of the U.S. manufacturing sector as part of a national push to discourage outsourcing in the industry.The proposal would work with a broader campaign to encourage companies to...

>LONDON Euro zone factories rounded off the first quarter in slightly better shape than initially thought but growth in activity remained weak despite the deepest price-cutting since late 2009, a survey showed on Friday.The surveys suggest manufacturing is still dragging on the wider economy, and growth remained weak in...

>Lawmakers are under pressure to form a new coalition to end a deadlock that threatens snap parliamentary elections and has delayed disbursement of $1.7 billion from the International Monetary Fund and other foreign loans."The current political crisis poses a very serious threat to the still fragile recovery and...

>The strikes on Thursday, which the Observatory said were carried out by Syrian aircraft, came despite a month-long "cessation of hostilities" in Syria between government forces and their opponents, excluding Islamic State and al Qaeda's Nusra Front.The U.S. State Department said it was appalled by the reported air...