News Archive - 18 November 2016

(Picture: Rouhollah Rahmani in an interview with Tasnim news agency.)   “There is not a single official who holds dual citizenship” said Iran’s Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi on November 1, 2016, on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran.   Article 98 of the law on public...

>Jeff Sessions may be known as a pro-business conservative but as U.S. attorney general he is unlikely to shy away from indicting big companies and individuals for serious white-collar crimes, legal experts said, citing his record as a lawmaker.President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named Sessions, a four-term senator...

>Doing so, Powell said, would not only help bolster growth in Asian economies hurt by slowing demand for their goods from other countries, but would also lift the world economy. Emerging Asian economies generally run large trade surpluses, leaving them vulnerable to the vagaries of international demand. World imports have...

>NEW YORK With President-elect Donald Trump promising to spend as much as half a trillion dollars on infrastructure and slash taxes – initiatives that could add dramatically to the U.S. debt and balloon the budget deficit - Wall Street is far more focused on who will next head the...

>WASHINGTON Ford Motor Co (F.N), one of Donald Trump's prime corporate targets on the campaign trail, offered the President-elect a chance to claim a victory late on Thursday by informing him it would not shift production of a Lincoln sport utility vehicle to Mexico from Kentucky.Trump jumped at...

>The company also said Chief Accounting Officer Jas Athwal had resigned, according to a regulatory filing. (bit.ly/2fcxJoA) (bit.ly/2fE2wvw (Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)...

>WASHINGTON Representative Mike Pompeo, President-elect Donald Trump's surprise choice to head the CIA, supports the U.S. government's sweeping collection of Americans' communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran.The retired Army officer, West Point and Harvard Law School graduate also has defended the CIA's use...

>In releasing the 2017-2022 plan, the Department of the Interior also limited leasing in the Cook Inlet off Alaska. Environmental activists have battled drilling in Alaska to protect wildlife, such as whales and walruses, and as part of a broader movement to keep remaining fossil fuels in the ground. President-elect...

>WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's plan to rapidly deport 2 to 3 million illegal immigrants with criminal records would further tax a system already stretched to its limits, current and former U.S. immigration officials say.Immigration courts, which issue deportation orders, set bond and grant or deny asylum,...

>"It is too early to say when exactly human clinical trials for these lenses will begin," a spokeswoman for the Basel-based drugmaker said in an email on Friday."This is a very technically complex process and both sides are learning as we go along. We will provide updates at the...

>NEW YORK The post-U.S. election market reaction is not concerning in terms of planned interest rate rises, an influential Federal Reserve official said on Friday, because the bond selloff and dollar rise appears motivated by expectations of new policies out of Washington."The movement in markets seems consistent with...

>SAN FRANCISCO After tussling for years to win customers, the two biggest U.S. companies in fantasy sports, DraftKings and FanDuel, said on Friday they are teaming up in a merger that will cut down on legal bills and advertising spending.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In...

>Initially only Italian buyers will be able to purchase their cars with a simple click online and the offers on Amazon.it will be limited to three models - the 500, the Panda and the 500L.FCA said the choice was deliberate because the Panda is Italy's biggest selling car,...

>NEW YORK President-elect Donald Trump is nearing a settlement of about $20 million in fraud lawsuits relating to Trump University, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.Lawyers for the president-elect have been squaring off against students who claim they were they were lured by false promises into...

>The cash offer of $13 for class A and class B shares of TerraForm Power is nearly in line with the class A stock's Thursday close of $13.01. (bit.ly/2g3NTiW)The company's shares have risen 48.7 percent since Brookfield took a stake in the company on June 29, when...

>The SEC also approved a similar plan by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, which regulates municipal advisers and bond dealers, the Wall Street watchdog said on Friday. The two controversial plans aim to help the public assess the fairness of prices charged by brokers for corporate and municipal bonds. The...

>BEIRUT Syrian rebels fought fiercely with pro-government forces as they tried to advance into opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo on Friday and warplanes kept up their bombardment of the area in a renewed bid by Damascus to retake the entire city.The U.N. humanitarian adviser said on Friday the...

>GUANGZHOU/WUZHEN, China German automaker BMW and Chinese internet giant Baidu will end their joint research on self-driving cars, executives for the two firms said on Friday, with Baidu now searching for new global research partners.Wang Jing, the head of autonomous car development at Baidu, told Reuters the company was...

>WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump on Friday named his earliest and staunchest supporter in the Senate, conservative Republican Jeff Sessions, to become the next U.S. attorney general, setting up a potentially difficult confirmation process.If cleared for the job by his fellow senators, Sessions, 69, would lead the Justice Department...

>LONDON Tucked into the attic of a Georgian building in London's West End, seven people run a $200 million hedge fund following artificial intelligence formulas. But the supercomputers that process their complex algorithms are nowhere to be seen. While most established hedge funds keep their trading systems at close quarters,...

>MOSUL, Iraq U.S.-backed Iraqi troops expanded their foothold on the eastern side of Islamic State's stronghold of Mosul on Friday, as the group pledged to mount more suicide attacks on their offensive to take the city.The elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) stormed the Tahrir district on the northeastern...

>BERLIN U.S. President Barack Obama and European leaders on Friday underscored the importance of working together in NATO and chided Russia for its bombing of Syria and failure to implement a Ukrainian peace accord.The White House statement followed a meeting at which Obama sought to reassure his counterparts...

>The Nasdaq hit a record high on Friday as tech stocks continued to recover, while the Dow and the S&P 500 were little changed but near their all-time highs.Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Thursday the central bank could raise interest rates "relatively soon", sending out a clear...

>DOHA OPEC is moving closer toward finalizing this month its first deal since 2008 to limit oil output, with most members prepared to offer Iran significant flexibility on production volumes, ministers and sources said on Friday.Iran has been the main stumbling block for such a deal because Tehran wants...

>Trump questioned during his election campaign whether the United States should protect allies that have low defense spending, raising fears that he could withdraw funding for the alliance at a time of greater tensions with Russia. "I am absolutely confident that President Trump will maintain U.S leadership in the...

>"We know that it is a difficult mission because it a mission where access is very difficult. We know manipulation of evidence can take place and evidence can disappear," Eliasson told a news conference in Geneva. "An attack of this nature constitutes without any doubt a war crime." "We...

>WASHINGTON Democratic attorneys general in at least five U.S. states have vowed to fight President-elect Donald Trump in the courts if he rolls back Obama-era regulations or adopts policies they view as infringing upon civil liberties.With Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Democratic...

>MOSCOW/LONDON When Russia sought to raise money on Western debt markets this year with a Eurobond, only three people at the state-run investment bank organizing the issue were told in advance about the date and details of the launch. The reason for the clandestine preparations: the Eurobond was a crucial...

>FRANKFURT Federal Reserve policymaker James Bullard is leaning toward supporting an interest rate increase in December, he said on Friday, adding that a plethora of potential changes under incoming president Donald Trump could affect future policy.St. Louis Federal Reserve President Bullard said the debate is now shifting toward the...

>WASHINGTON Most of the U.S. coal industry doubts Donald Trump can fulfill his promise to make the ailing industry great again in a country awash in dirt-cheap natural gas, a competing fuel. But a small sub-section of the coal sector that mines metallurgical coal - a variety used by...

>WOLFSBURG, Germany Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and its powerful labor unions agreed to cut 30,000 jobs at the core VW brand in exchange for avoiding forced redundancies in Germany until 2025, a compromise which leaves the carmaker's profitability still lagging rivals.The turnaround plan announced on Friday will lead to 3.

>In March, the U.S. Commerce Department hit ZTE with some of the toughest-ever U.S. export restrictions for allegedly breaking sanctions against Iran but has since issued temporary reprieves on the curbs.The latest reprieve comes after ZTE said this week it had appointed Matthew Bell as its new...

>BEIRUT/AMMAN On the eve of Donald Trump's election victory, members of a Western-backed Syrian rebel group met U.S. officials to ask about the outlook for arms shipments they have received to fight President Bashar al-Assad. They were told the program would continue until the end of the year, but...

>QAYYARA, Iraq The school walls have a fresh coat of paint and classrooms are crammed, but it will take longer to undo the damage done to thousands of Iraqi children who lived under Islamic State for more than two years.Although the school term began officially in September, only this...

>"The United States is deeply concerned," RIA quoted an embassy representative as saying. "We call on Russia to immediately restore access to LinkedIn." (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Christian Lowe)...

>LIMA Leaders of Pacific rim nations began gathering in Peru on Friday seeking to salvage hopes for regional trade as prospects of a Donald Trump presidency sounded a possible death knell for the U.S-led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact.Discussions between the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific...

>Nov 18 Euro zone economic growth will hum along at a modest pace over the coming year, according to economists in a Reuters poll whose views have barely changed since the U.S. election and five months after Britain voted to exit the European Union.Despite what appears to be...

>LONDON/BAGHDAD Iraq would have to compensate international oil companies for limits placed on their production, according to industry sources and documents seen by Reuters, further reducing the prospect it will join any OPEC deal to curb the group's output.The compensation - stipulated in contracts - would compound the financial...