News Archive - 29 August 2016

By: Sadegh Maleki   Turkey's offensive in Jarabulus, northern Syria, is not just another foreign intervention in the country. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif's recent visit to Ankara, Turkish FM Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu's trip to Tehran, US Vice President Joseph Biden and Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani's meetings with...

>TOKYO Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday the government is watching market moves carefully and is ready to respond "appropriately", when asked whether Tokyo could intervene in the currency market to stem excessive yen rises.Suga, the government's top spokesman, also defended the Bank of Japan's controversial...

>SINGAPORE Oil futures edged up on Tuesday as the U.S. dollar erased earlier gains, but doubts that producers would be able to agree to an output freeze continued to drag on prices. International Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were trading at $49.34 per barrel at 0125 GMT, up...

>SAN FRANCISCO Alphabet executive David Drummond, who has been a director on the Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] board for close to three years, has stepped down, the ride-hailing firm confirmed on Monday.The move is a signal of increased overlap between the two companies as they vie for an...

>BRASILIA A defiant President Dilma Rousseff warned on Monday that her conservative opponents were trampling on Brazil's democracy by using trumped-up charges to oust her and roll back the social advances of 13 years of leftist rule.Presenting her defense at an impeachment trial in the Senate, Brazil's first female...

>SYDNEY Asian shares bounced on Tuesday as doubts the Federal Reserve really would hike rates as soon as September undermined the dollar, while investors continued to count on more policy stimulus elsewhere in the world.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.4 percent, recouping around...

>JX Holdings President Yukio Uchida will head the new company which would likely be named JXTG Holdings, while TonenGeneral Sekiyu President Jun Mutoh will become vice president, the Nikkei business daily and Yomiuri newspaper said. JX Holdings Chairman Yasushi Kimura will be chairman of the new company, the Nikkei added.

>Some 2,213 investments were made in the year ending in March, up 11 percent from the previous year, the government said. That resulted in the creation or "safeguarding" of 116,000 jobs, it said. However, the government did not provide a value for the investments, and it did not explain how...

>TOKYO Japanese household spending fell less than expected in July and the jobless rate hit a two-decade low, offering some hope for policymakers battling to pull the world's third-largest economy out of stagnation.But with the economy barely growing and inflation sliding further away from the Bank of Japan's 2...

>LOS ANGELES California lawmakers, responding to outrage over the six-month jail term given to a former Stanford University swimmer after his conviction for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, passed legislation on Monday closing a loophole that allowed the sentence.The bill now goes to Democratic Governor Jerry Brown for his...

>WASHINGTON When President Barack Obama travels to Asia next week, he will try to reassure leaders in the region that he still has the clout to deliver U.S. approval for the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership, even though the two candidates vying to succeed him and a congressional leader have said...

>In a case full of twists, Caesars Entertainment Corp (CZR.O) late on Monday won a two-week extension on a shield from lawsuits worth billions of dollars just days after a different U.S. court allowed those cases to proceed.Investors are suing Caesars for reneging on its guaranty of...

>SAN FRANCISCO Sycamore Partners on Monday confirmed it submitted a bid for Aeropostale Inc after a judge issued an opinion rejecting the teen-focused retailer's attempt to block an offer and blame its bankruptcy on the private equity firm.Aeropostale owes $151 million to two Sycamore affiliates, Aero Investors LLC and...

>Shares of Mondelez, the maker of Oreo cookies and Cadbury chocolates, rose nearly 4 percent in extended trading on Monday, while Hershey's shares plunged about 12 percent. Hershey rejected a $23 billion cash-and-stock offer by Mondelez in June. "Following additional discussions, and taking into account recent shareholder developments at Hershey,...

>Bubble Wrap maker Sealed Air Corp (SEE.N) could consider selling or spinning off its floor cleaning products unit but is in no hurry to make a decision, Chief Executive Jerome Peribere said.Diversey, Sealed Air's second-biggest business by revenue, was acquired in 2011 by Peribere's predecessor, William Hickey, in...

>MONTREAL Canadian construction and engineering company SNC-Lavalin Group Inc (SNC.TO) said on Monday it is weighing an offer for its entire business in France, which has about 1,100 employees and manages 17 regional airports in the country.The offer, for an undisclosed amount, comes from a partnership comprising private...

>Obama wants to talk with Erdogan about events in Turkey after July's attempted coup, the military campaign against Islamic State, and how to promote stability in Syria, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters. The White House said it opposes Turkey's push into areas in northern Syria controlled by...

> Houston-based EnVen plans to buy the Brutus/Glider assets, which include a subsea production system, and the deal is expected to close in October. (Reporting by Vishaka George in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)...

>NEW YORK The U.S. dollar was flat on Monday, erasing earlier gains, as investors looked ahead to jobs data this week that Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer has said will be important to whether the U.S. central bank raises interest rates soon.Investors have increased expectations that...

>SIRTE, Libya Libyan forces said they captured a residential neighborhood in central Sirte from Islamic State on Monday, leaving just one district of the city still occupied by the militants.Spokesman Rida Issa said Sirte's neighborhood Number One was "completely liberated", but added that the brigades, backed by U.S.

>"Boeing will continue to quote July 2015 base prices in 2016," company spokesman Doug Alder said in an email to Reuters. Airlines typically negotiate steep discounts from the list prices that Boeing and rival Airbus (AIR.PA) quote publicly, leaving the list prices as largely symbolic. But Boeing has held...

>The Vancouver-based company's shares rose as much as 15.6 percent to C$1.93 in morning trading, the rise was the stock's biggest intraday percentage gain in nearly a year.Ivanhoe Mines said it would hire an investment bank to seek advice on the unsolicited interest and to advise its...

>PARIS Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said on Monday he had entered exclusive negotiations to buy Olympique de Marseille and vowed to restore the club to their former glories.Billionaire businesswoman Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, the Russian-born chairwoman of Louis Dreyfus Commodities trading house, said in...

>WASHINGTON A federal appeals court in California on Monday dismissed a U.S. government lawsuit that accused AT&T Inc (T.N) of deception for reducing internet speeds for customers with unlimited mobile data plans once their use exceeded certain levels. The company, however, could still face a fine from the...

> "The president is going to make a strong case that we have made progress and there is a path for us to get this done before the president leaves office," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told a new briefing ahead of a trip by Obama to Asia this week.

> In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs accused Valeant of violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and sought compensatory and triple damages. The defendants include Andrew Davenport, who had been chief executive of the specialty pharmacy, Philidor RX Services...

>DUBLIN The European Commission will rule against Ireland's tax dealings with Apple (AAPL.O) on Tuesday, two source familiar with the decision told Reuters, one of whom said Dublin would be told to recoup over 1 billion euros in back taxes.The Commission declined to comment on Monday.The European...

>An increasing number of users are turning to social media networks, such as Facebook (FB.O) and Twitter (TWTR.N), to find their news, but Zuckerberg said his firm had no ambitions to become a content provider. "No, we are a tech company, not a media company," said Zuckerberg, after...

>Clinton's campaign to win the Nov. 8 presidential election has been dogged by criticism that donors to the Clinton Foundation may have expected special favors from the U.S. government in return. She says donors to the global charity receive no preferential treatment. "The Clinton Foundation can play a vital...

>** "Absolutely, I think there are loads of deals out there," he said when asked whether he expects more deals coming up** Says: "If you look at the acquisition and divestment markets for upstream oil and gas on a global basis over the last five years, they have been falling...

>BERLIN The German government wants Facebook to be more proactive in monitoring and, if necessary, removing forbidden as well as offensive content from its social network platform.Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere visited Facebook's offices in Berlin and said the company had done well in cooperating with authorities when help...

>WASHINGTON Huma Abedin, one of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's top aides, said on Monday that she was separating from her husband, Anthony Weiner, after a sex scandal similar to an earlier incident that led him to resign from the U.S. Congress."After long and painful consideration and work...

>OTTAWA Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visits Beijing this week seeking deeper ties with China but a dispute over canola exports, government divisions over China policy and the case of a detained citizen look set to limit his gains.China welcomed last year's election victory by Trudeau's Liberals, recalling with...

>NAJRAN, Saudi Arabia Yemeni Houthi forces are again firing rockets at this corner of southern Saudi Arabia, ending a lull of several weeks and complicating efforts to revive talks on ending Yemen's 18-month-old civil war.This month's collapse of negotiations on the Yemen conflict - which like the Syrian civil...

>Apple Inc (AAPL.O) has been sued by owners of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones who say a design defect causes the phones' touchscreens to become unresponsive, making them unusable.According to a proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit filed on Saturday, Apple has long been aware of the defect,...

>Cemex said in a statement that the terms of deal with GCC had changed since an initial announcement in May, when the asset sales were expected to be worth $400 million.Cemex is aiming to sell assets worth up to $2 billion, up from a previous goal of $1 billion...

>Zhongwang International is also the parent of China Zhongwang Holdings Ltd (1333.HK), the world's second-largest producer of aluminum extrusions.Zhongwang USA, which is majority-owned by Liu Zhongtian, the founder of China Zhongwang, will pay $1.11 billion in cash and take on Aleris's $1.22 billion in net debt,...

>WASHINGTON The FBI is urging U.S. election officials to increase computer security after it uncovered evidence that hackers have targeted two state election databases in recent weeks, according to a confidential advisory.The warning was in an Aug. 18 flash alert from the FBI's Cyber Division. Reuters obtained a...

> Mylan said earlier it would launch the first generic version of EpiPen for $300, half the price of the branded product, in the drugmaker's second step in less than a week to counter a backlash over the product's steep price. Chaffetz and Cummings, the committee's chairman and ranking member...

>WASHINGTON U.S. consumer spending increased for a fourth straight month in July amid strong demand for automobiles, pointing to a pickup in economic growth that could pave the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year.The Commerce Department said on Monday that consumer spending, which...

>The all-cash deal is expected to be completed before the end of 2016, the companies said on Monday.L&W Supply distributes gypsum wallboard and other building materials in the United States. The distribution business accounted for about 38 percent of Chicago-based USG's total sales of $3.78 billion in 2015.

>BERLIN Germany's BGA trade association slashed its 2016 forecast for export growth, its head said on Monday, predicting sales abroad by Europe's biggest economy would later stagnate as the delayed impact of Brexit hit home.Global demand for German goods has slowed significantly, with Britain's decision to leave the European...

>Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel of Germany, the EU's biggest economy, said on Sunday that negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had failed because Europe rejected some U.S. demands.Asked to comment on Gabriel's remarks, a European Commission spokesman said "the ball is still rolling" on TTIP.

>BOSTON BlackRock Inc withheld support from two high-profile directors at Exxon Mobil Corp, (XOM.N) securities filings show, a rare spat apparently driven by a board communications policy at the world's largest energy company.Because top fund managers like BlackRock rarely discuss their votes in detail, filings in late August...

> The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 41.43 points, or 0.23 percent, at 18,436.83, the S&P 500 .SPX was up 3.92 points, or 0.18 percent, at 2,172.96 and the Nasdaq composite .IXIC was up 7.73 points, or 0.15 percent, at...

>Iranian state TV on Sunday aired footage of deployment of the recently delivered missile system to the nuclear site in the central Iran. "Our main priority is to protect Iran's nuclear facilities under any circumstances," Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC) air defense force...

>ATHENS Greece's economy grew modestly in the second quarter but weak demand and scant investment mean a strong rebound after years of recession remains elusive a year after the country nearly crashed out of the euro. Data released on Monday showed the 176 billion euro ($196.8 billion) economy expanded...

>BENGALURU India's economic growth likely lost some momentum in the April-June quarter on cutbacks in domestic and global demand, a Reuters poll showed.The poll also found that economists expect the newly-passed goods and services tax will take time to have an impact on gross domestic product growth.For April-June,...

>Zika virus, detected in Brazil and elsewhere last year before spreading to the Americas, is associated with microcephaly, a birth defect characterized by an unusually small head and potential developmental problems. Through last week, the United States reported 2,517 Zika cases, 29 of which were likely acquired locally in Florida...

>NEW YORK When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency.The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange...

>Five assailants including the suicide bomber attacked the celebration in Ain al-Tamr, west of Kerbala in southern Iraq, firing machine guns and throwing hand grenades, the police said. All the attackers were killed by security forces.The bombing is the first in the Kerbala region since Iraqi forces dislodged Islamic...

>The official said at least 60 other people were brought into a nearby hospital run by the medical charity in Aden's Mansoura district. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but it resembled previous suicide bombings which Islamic State said it carried out in the city.A security source said...

>BEIJING On the face of it, China's central bank has room to cut interest rates to try to lift the economy, but sources say evidence companies and banks are hoarding cash has reinforced policymakers' view there is no major benefit in easing policy further.The reluctance has also been shaped...

>"Austrian air traffic control has solved the issue," the airport said on its website early on Monday. "At the moment there are no delayed or canceled flights. We advise passengers to contact their airline." The automated transfer of flight planning data between air traffic control centers in Brussels and...

>BEIJING China is hoping to cement its standing as a global power when it hosts leaders from the world's biggest economies this weekend, but suspects the West and its allies will try to deny Beijing what it sees as its rightful place on the international stage. Ensuring that this does...

>BRUSSELS Arsonists set fire to Belgium's National Institute of Criminology in Brussels on Monday, causing an explosion but no casualties, a Brussels prosecutor said.Ine Van Wymersch said there were no immediate indications that the fire at the institute, which was empty at the time, was a militant attack although...