News Archive - 21 September 2016

Last Wednesday, pro-Rouhani media outlets quoted chief of Iran’s Central Bank Valiollah Seif as saying that the nuclear deal has paved the ground for Iran to gradually return to the international scene, double its oil exports, and directly work with foreign firms. Speaking to a ‘resistance economy headquarters’ summit...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump opposes a long-planned transition of oversight of the internet's technical management from the U.S. government to a global community of stakeholders, his campaign said in a statement on Wednesday.Congress should block the handover, scheduled to occur on Oct. 1, "or...

>SINGAPORE Oil prices rose around 1 percent on Thursday, extending gains from the previous session after a surprise third consecutive weekly U.S. crude inventory draw tightened the market.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures CLc1 were trading at $45.81 per barrel at 0301 GMT (11:01...

>Biden, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said that the brief "lame duck" session of Congress after the Nov. 8 presidential election was "our only real shot" for approving TPP.The sweeping trade deal has been a central plank in President Barack Obama's foreign policy shift...

>NEW DELHI India is negotiating with U.S. Export-Import Bank for an $8-9 billion loan to finance six Westinghouse Electric nuclear reactors, two sources familiar with the talks said, although a lending freeze at the trade agency threatens progress.The mega-project, the result of warming U.S.-India ties in...

>MOSCOW Russia will not start printing money to support economic growth and will not allow populism to dictate the budget, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev wrote in an article published on Thursday.In the government's first economic policy pointers since Sunday's parliamentary vote strengthened President Vladimir Putin's grip on power, Medvedev...

>Fighter jets of an Arab alliance launched missiles on Wednesday at a presidential palace in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah occupied by leaders of the Iran-allied Houthi militia, a resident told Reuters.A raid hit a house in a neighborhood populated by workers adjacent to the palace killing...

>NEW YORK Greece's prime minister on Tuesday sketched out a path he hopes will finally allow his country to exit its seven-year-old economic crisis, holding out the possibility of positive growth this year and a partial return to the bond markets in 2017.Alexis Tsipras told Reuters in a rare...

>SINGAPORE/SYDNEY Asian shares surged on Thursday, taking their cue from Wall Street, after the Federal Reserve left U.S. interest rates unchanged and slowed the pace of future hikes, slugging the dollar and lifting commodity prices.MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS advanced 0.9 percent in...

>NEW YORK A federal judge threw out a challenge to a North Carolina law that allows government officials to refuse to perform same-sex marriages if they cite religious objections, claiming the couples who brought the suit failed to establish they were harmed by the law.The six plaintiffs, who include...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Senate cleared the way for a $1.15 billion sale of tanks and other military equipment to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, defending a frequent partner in the Middle East recently subject to harsh criticism in Congress.The Senate voted 71 to 27 to kill legislation that...

>The military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the first of two initial tests showed the presence of a mustard agent but the second did not. None of the U.S. forces who inspected the shell fragments have displayed symptoms of exposure to a mustard agent, the official...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. government, which is suing to stop Anthem Inc's (ANTM.N) proposed purchase of Cigna Corp (CI.N), is pressing the health insurers to provide letters in which each of them accused the other of breaching the merger agreement, according to court documents filed on Wednesday.Anthem...

>CLEVELAND U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would consider using "stop-and-frisk" policing methods to cut crime if elected, according to two people who attended a Fox News "town hall" taping at a predominantly African-American church in Cleveland.With the race tightening between Trump and Democratic...

>WASHINGTON U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday blasted steep price increases for Mylan's EpiPen emergency allergy treatment as they grilled the company's Chief Executive Heather Bresch at a congressional hearing. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform called Bresch to testify after the company raised the list price for a...

>Shares then pared gains after a company spokesperson said the company was not "aware of" anything specific that boosted the shares about 6.8 percent. At midday Harley shares were up about 3 percent."We don't comment on rumors," Maripat Blankenheim, Harley-Davidson spokesperson said. "Those kinds of rumors happen every...

>UNITED NATIONS In his first major United Nations speech eight years ago, President Barack Obama said he would not give up on Israeli-Palestinian peace.In likely his last U.N. speech, on Tuesday, he spoke little about the conflict beyond voicing the unsurprising sentiment that matters would improve if Israel...

>NEW YORK Wells Fargo & Co Chief Executive John Stumpf prides himself on being a banker who understands the little guy's financial problems. He has spoken publicly about growing up poor on a Minnesota farm, starting his career as a low-level repo man and being underwater on his own mortgage...

>"I worry about legal matters. I worry about trial lawyers trying to get rich off of this. And I do worry about the precedence. At the same time, these victims do need to have their day in court," Ryan, a Republican, told reporters.Congress has overwhelmingly passed the Justice Against...

>FRANKFURT A handful of European tech firms are testing the appetite for initial public offerings, taking their lead from a modest rebound in listings in the United States following a two-year slump.Danish credit card payments processor Nets A/S and Dutch online food ordering firm Takeaway.com plan to list...

>CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island Canadian police evacuated all schools in the eastern province of Prince Edward Island due to a bomb threat and said similar threats were made on Wednesday against schools in Nova Scotia and the United States.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said no explosive device had been...

>The fighting broke out in a rural district of the town in the mainly Kurdish southeast, the sources said. Village guards are residents armed and paid by the state to protect their communities. They are frequent targets for fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey's southeast has been hit...

>The loss-making automotive group could be valued at between 1 billion pounds ($1.30 billion) and 1.5 billion pounds, the newspaper reported. (on.ft.com/2cUU1ax)A deal with McLaren, which also produces high performance sports cars, could give Apple key automotive technology amid reports that the iPhone maker is working...

>Frogmind, founded in 2012, is known for game series 'Badland' which has been downloaded by more than 45 million players.Supercell said it will pay 7 million euros ($7.80 million) for the majority stake, adding that Frogmind will continue to operate as an independent company - similar to the...

>Viacom also said it had ended the process of seeking a minority investor for Paramount Pictures as it considers all options available to the company.The media company, which owns cable networks Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central, halved its dividend to 20 cents per share from 40 cents as it...

>NEW YORK Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan's ageing, shrinking population was not a burden, but an incentive to boost productivity through innovations like robots, wireless sensors, and Artificial Intelligence.Abe's comments on Wednesday came days after official data showed that Japan has 34.6 million people aged 65 and...

>The new messaging service, which was unveiled in May, will compete with Facebook Inc's (FB.O) WhatsApp and Messenger. The much-anticipated launch comes a month after Google rolled out Duo, its video calling app.Allo features a chatbot powered by Google Assistant, a virtual personal assistant like Apple Inc's (AAPL.

>Wall Street rose on Wednesday, helped by gains in technology and energy stocks, ahead of the Federal Reserve's decision later in the day. The Fed is scheduled to release a statement at 2:00 p.m. ET, followed by Chair Janet Yellen's press conference. While the chances of a hike are...

>The trade group's seasonally adjusted index on refinancing activity fell 8 percent in the week ended Sept. 16 to its lowest level since the week of June 24.The average contract interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances of $417,000 or less climbed to 3.70 percent,...

>The retailer said it would begin repurchasing shares under the new plan upon completion of its current $10 billion program, which is expected before the end of fiscal 2016 in January. Target also declared a dividend of 60 cents per common share for the fourth quarter, unchanged from the third...

>WASHINGTON A U.S. congressional committee has launched an examination of the Food and Drug Administration's criminal office, raising questions about the unit’s management and handling of cases involving food, drugs and devices.The House Energy and Commerce Committee told FDA Commissioner Robert Califf it is "examining management concerns" and...

>BEIRUT Syrian rebels and pro-government forces battled each other on major frontlines near Aleppo and Hama, and air strikes reportedly killed a dozen people including four medical workers, as a ceasefire appeared to have completely unraveled.The renewed battles demonstrated the thin prospects for reviving a truce that collapsed into...

>FRANKFURT Long-term yield targeting, an innovative move now adopted by the Bank of Japan, would solve many of the European Central Bank's own problems but would probably raise even more, making the policy difficult to emulate.Focusing on keeping the long end of the yield curve stable - around zero...

>The Bank has been conducting its own stress test of banks since the 2007-09 financial crisis, supplementing European Union tests. The aim is to spot flaws in business models and check if lenders are holding enough capital to withstand big market shocks.The BoE has already spoken about stress testing...

>On Monday, the firm's CGT union said Engie was considering the future of its LNG business, which could lead to a reorganisation and maybe a sale."No, gas really is part of our activities ... Shipping gas to countries which today are relying on coal and which want to switch to...

>WASHINGTON U.S. lawmakers expressed concern on Tuesday over a wave of mergers among companies that sell farmers their seeds, herbicides and insecticides, worrying that the deals could lead to higher prices and less innovation at a time of dropping farm incomes.Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said...

>ANKARA/JERUSALEM A man was shot and wounded by Turkish police outside the Israeli Embassy in Ankara after he shouted slogans and wielded a knife on Wednesday, but initial inquiries indicated he had no links to an organized group, officials said.The man, a 41-year-old from the central city of Konya,...

>The companies said on Wednesday they will combine Bosch's platform and SAP's back-end software to connect vehicles, manufacturing machinery and tools of Bosch customers.By 2020, some 21 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices will be in use worldwide, up from fewer than 5 billion last year, research firm Gartner...

>The revelation of new military-related construction could raise tensions in the contested waterway, where China's building of airstrips and other facilities has worried other claimants and the United States.The images seen on Google Earth show four three-pronged structures sitting in a semi-circle just off the northwestern shoreline of Itu...

>NEW DELHI India will merge its railway budget with the annual federal budget from the next fiscal year, ending a nearly century-long practice and easing the way for the government to cut populist subsidies and push through structural reforms. The world's fourth-largest rail network employs about 1.3 million people...

>ZURICH ABB (ABBN.S) is selling its high-voltage cabling business to NKT Cables (NKT.CO) in a deal worth 836 million euros ($932 million), the first fruit of the Swiss power and automation company's review of its massive Power Grids division.Analysts interpreted the deal as a signal ABB was...

>Financial data firm Markit said its Household Finance Index stayed broadly flat at 44.8 in September from its August level of 44.9, maintaining the rebound from a plunge in July shortly after the referendum on EU membership.Expectations for living costs in 12 months' time dropped to their...

>SEOUL U.S. carrier Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) has begun taking orders for Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's (005930.KS) new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, after having stopped sales of the device earlier due to fire-prone batteries.Samsung has recalled about 1 million Note 7 smartphones in the United States,...

>NEW YORK U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been a hit with small donors, raking in two-thirds of his individual campaign contributions in sums of $200 or less, according to financial disclosures filed on Tuesday. But with the big-money donor class, the players Trump blasted during the primary...

>LONDON The yen recovered from lows on Wednesday, with investors skeptical about whether the Bank of Japan latest measures will be enough to generate inflation, with many also cautious about the dollar before the Federal Reserve's policy announcement.Japan's central bank, overhauling its massive stimulus program, decided to scrap its...

>LONDON For London rabbi Julia Neuberger, Britain's vote to leave the European Union has had a very personal impact: she has decided to seek German citizenship, laying to rest her family's painful legacy of the Nazi era.Neuberger is among a significant number of Jewish Britons whose dismay over Brexit...

>The raid hit the town of Khan Touman southwest of Aleppo city, an area controlled by insurgents. The British-based Observatory said the rebels killed were from the Islamist alliance Jaish al-Fatah. The medical staff killed were working for the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), it said. UOSSM...

>OSAN, South Korea Two U.S. supersonic bombers flew over South Korea on Wednesday, with one of them landing at an air base 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital, the second such flight since North Korea's Sept. 9 nuclear test.U.S. Forces Korea said in a statement...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday amid tepid inflation and recent weak economic data, but could signal an increased likelihood of a hike by the end of the year.The U.S. central bank raised its benchmark overnight interest rate to...