News Archive - 2 December 2016

The US’ Senate’s unanimous vote to extend sanctions against Iran for another ten-year period has raised the ire of Iranian officials who view it as a gross breach of the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers, which ruled out design and imposition of any new...

>The bill, signed by 171 members of the 300-seat unicameral assembly, said Park violated the constitution and criminal law by abusing her presidential power. "We hereby propose impeachment proceedings to protect the constitution and restore constitutional order by removing President Park Geun-hye from office," it said."The will of the...

>NEW YORK Airbnb Inc and New York City said on Friday they had resolved a lawsuit brought by the company challenging a law it argued could expose it to significant penalties for advertising short-term apartment rentals.Airbnb filed the suit in October after New York state enacted a law imposing...

>FRANKFURT Deutsche Bank's Global Markets division will cut ties with about 3,400 clients in its debt and equities sales activities, the bank said on Friday. Deutsche Bank will immediately cease debt sales services to some financial institutions and hedge funds as well as equity sales activities, the execution of equities...

>NEW YORK The rally in regional U.S. bank stocks that followed last month's election of Donald Trump may not be over, but investors may have to wait for policy to take shape for the massive move to extend further.The S&P 600 index of small-cap banks .SPSMCBKS has surged...

>Satellite radio company Sirius XM Holdings Inc's Chairman Greg Maffei recently made a fresh approach to internet radio provider Pandora Media Inc and expressed interest about a potential takeover, according to a source familiar with the matter.Sirius XM did not offer a specific price and Pandora has yet to...

>WASHINGTON/NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke by phone on Friday with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, a move that is likely to infuriate China and complicate U.S. relations with Beijing.The call was the first such contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President...

>WASHINGTON Online credit companies and paperless lenders would be able to get federal charters to do business nationwide under a plan outlined on Friday by a U.S. banking regulator.The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the main regulator for federal banks, said it hoped offering a...

>WASHINGTON Congress is expected to approve President-elect Donald Trump's choice of retired Marine Corps General James "Mad Dog" Mattis as secretary of defense, despite Democratic concerns that it ignores a long tradition of civilian control of the military.For Mattis to be confirmed, the Senate and the House of Representatives...

>U.S. health spending in 2015 rose at its fastest rate since 2007, driven by expanded access to insurance under the Affordable Care Act and high-priced specialty drugs, according to government figures released on Friday.Growth rose 5.8 percent to $3.2 trillion, or $9,990 per person, according to...

>WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump announced the formation of a council to advise him on job creation, a group comprised of the leaders of a variety of major U.S. corporations including GE, GM, Boeing, Disney and IBM. Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer of major investment firm Blackstone Group LP, will...

>Asked about the panel's upcoming report, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters he could not preview any of its recommendations but that Obama and panel chairman Tom Donilon would discuss cyber security efforts during the meeting. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Matthew Lewis)...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter makes his last scheduled trip to Asia next week, and he will try to sooth anxieties caused by Donald Trump's election, U.S. officials said.The Obama administration made Asia and U.S. alliances there a priority. While details of Trump's approach to...

>BRUSSELS Islamic State will attack Europe again, security chiefs warned on Friday, and may add car bombs, cyber and chemical warfare to its local arsenal as European militants drift home after reverses in Syria and Iraq.Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, said it was impossible to know...

>Central bank official Artyom Sychyov discussed the losses at a briefing, saying that the hackers had attempted to steal about 5 billion rubles. Sychyov was commenting on a central bank report released earlier in the day, that told about hackers breaking into accounts there by faking a client's credentials. The...

>WASHINGTON U.S. banking regulators must defend tough rules governing Wall Street and resist efforts to dilute regulations that might prevent a future financial crisis, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said on Friday."It is critical that we not forget our still quite recent history," Tarullo told a meeting of...

>WASHINGTON A drop in the U.S. unemployment rate last month to a 9-year low signals the risk of a collision between President-elect Donald Trump's plans to goose the economy and the Federal Reserve's efforts to tap the brakes with higher interest rates.Since Trump's election, officials at the U.

>Ixia (XXIA.O), a U.S. provider of equipment and applications that help maintain computer networks, is a potential sale, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.The company's move comes as the ever increasing volume of data traffic flowing through social media, smart phones and cloud computing tests...

>The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by 375-34, sending it to the U.S. Senate, which is expected to vote next week on the $618.7 billion measure setting policy for the Pentagon.After months of negotiation, the House and Senate Armed Services committees unveiled a compromise version of...

>ZURICH Actelion's silence speaks volumes to the dozens of event-driven hedge funds piling into the Swiss biotech firm, betting that Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) (JNJ.N) approach will result in an outright takeover and handsome returns. A source familiar with the matter has told Reuters the two companies are discussing...

>NEW YORK U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said he expected to have most members of his Cabinet announced next week, interviewing more candidates at Trump Tower for top jobs in his administration as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20.Trump is still weighing who to choose as secretary...

>LONDON Britons desperate for faster broadband are unlikely to get it from a plan to separate the country's biggest network from BT unless the industry tackles how to pay up to 25 billion pounds ($76 billion) to upgrade to fiber-optic cables.In a bid to boost Britain's economy through Brexit,...

>MANILA/WASHINGTON U.S. President-elect Donald Trump invited Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte to the White House next year during a "very engaging, animated" phone conversation, a Duterte aide said on Friday, amid rocky relations between their two countries.Trump's brief chat with the firebrand Philippine president comes during a period of...

>The latest fourth-quarter GDP estimate was faster than the 2.50 percent growth rate calculated on Nov. 25, the New York Fed said on its website. (Reporting by Richard Leong)...

>BEIRUT A senior Syrian opposition official accused Russia on Friday of procrastinating in talks with rebels over Aleppo, signaling no progress in diplomacy which rebels hoped would ease dire conditions in the city where they are in danger of defeat.Buoyed by its rapid capture of several whole neighborhoods, the...

>Bill Schuette, a Republican, said in a statement that recounting all of the state's votes "threatens to silence all Michigan votes for president" and criticized Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein for what he called an "inexcusable" and expensive request.The Green Party has sought recounts of the results from...

>In the letter, addressed to Venezuela's Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, Mercosur informs Venezuela of "the cessation of the exercise of the rights inhered to a member state as of this date."Following a decade in which strong growth and leftist policies across South America led the bloc to embrace Venezuela,...

>The measures come after North Korea conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test in September. The United States opposes the development of nuclear arms by North Korea and its missile program, but a U.S. policy of both sanctions and diplomacy has failed so far to dent North Korea's aims.

>WASHINGTON Billionaire investor Mark Cuban will be among the witnesses scheduled to testify at a U.S. Senate Judiciary panel hearing on Dec. 7 on AT&T Inc's (T.N) proposed $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc (TWX.N).Cuban confirmed that he will testify in an email to...

>President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, is preparing 100-day and 200-day plans aimed at fulfilling his campaign promises and stimulating economic growth, Pence said.The administration’s first priorities would include curbing illegal immigration, abolishing and replacing Obama’s signature healthcare program, nominating someone to fill a vacancy on...

>Trump lambasted China throughout the U.S. election campaign, drumming up headlines with his pledges to slap 45 percent tariffs on imported Chinese goods and to label the country a currency manipulator.A few days after his victory, Xi told Trump in a telephone call that cooperation was the only...

>BAGHDAD Facing brutal urban warfare in Mosul and with their push slowed by the presence of one million residents, Iraqi commanders examined changing strategy last week to help civilians leave to give the army a free hand to strike Islamic State fighters.The proposal, a sign of frustration at slow...

>Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz's decision to step down is unlikely to disrupt growth at the world's biggest coffee chain as his successor Kevin Johnson is well suited to take the helm, analysts said.Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) said on Thursday that Schultz would step down as CEO on April...

>About 602,000 of the vehicles recalled are in the U.S. market and about 650,000 of them are in North America as a whole.A small amount of Ford Mondeo sedans are also being recalled, but none of them are in North America.Ford said it is aware of two...

>But those innovations must protect consumers and the financial system, and not let practices like redlining take root in the developing "fintech" industry, she said."'Run fast and break things' may be a popular mantra in the technology space," Brainard said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference on...

>Chances of a rate hike at the Fed's Dec. 13-14 meeting were pegged at 95 percent after the report, based on CME's FedWatch page. Before the release, which also showed a solid 178,000 jobs gained last month, traders saw about a 93 percent chance of a December rate hike, and...

>Officials with Trump's team have been in touch with fellow Republicans in Congress, where they hold the majority, to discuss possible sanctions separate from last year's Iran nuclear deal that could focus on its ballistic missile program or human rights, the sources told the FT.“They (Trump team members) are...

>Teleflex's offer of $56 per Vascular share in cash represents a premium of 1.6 percent to the stock's Thursday close.The deal comes about 10 months after Vascular Solutions and its founder CEO, Howard Root, were found not guilty in a criminal prosecution related to alleged "off-label" promotion of...

>MEDELLIN, Colombia Dozens of hearses carrying the coffins of those killed when a plane flying Brazil's Chapecoense soccer team crashed into a Colombian mountain will leave Medellin for the airport on Friday to be flown home.The disaster on Monday night killed 71 people and shocked soccer fans the world...

>FRANKFURT With Italy's constitutional referendum and Austria's presidential vote on Sunday both potentially underlining growing anti-establishmentism, the European Central Bank is preparing to set to try to bring some calm to the mix. It is expected on Thursday to extend its already generous asset buys, emphasizing heightened risk, including from...

>MOSCOW Russia plans to use its November oil production, which was its highest in almost 30 years, as its baseline when it cuts output under this week's deal with OPEC, Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said on Friday.Russia has promised to gradually cut output by up to 300,000 barrels...

>Aixtron shares fell early on Friday following a report by Bloomberg that said Obama was poised to block the deal, citing sources.Last month, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) recommended that Aixtron's sale to the Chinese investment fund be stopped due to security concerns.A...

>The indictment of Uber BV is a test case seeking judicial assessment of possible complicity by the company in illegal acts by its drivers, Copenhagen police's top prosecutor Vibeke Thorkil-Jensen's said in a news release.An Uber driver in Denmark was convicted last month of violating taxi laws and fined...

>PARIS Prime Minister Manuel Valls emerged on Friday as the possible standard bearer of the ruling Socialists in France's presidential election following Francois Hollande's shock announcement that he would not seek a second term.A snap opinion poll, conducted on Thursday night after Hollande' statement, showed that Socialist voters and...

>HOUSTON Delays to the Dakota Access Pipeline have added millions of dollars to Energy Transfer Partners' construction tab - but even if the line is approved, the freezing temperatures will bring their own challenges to finishing the drilling process.Frigid weather makes some aspects of pipeline construction more difficult, though...

>Nabiullina also said that rouble volatility has decreased, and that the banking system is stable. She said she saw Russia's potential economic growth at less than 1.5-2 percent. (Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Maria Kiselyova)...

>LONDON Politics, economics and finance have all been turned on their head in 2016, and investors are already looking ahead to 2017 with anticipation and trepidation.The consensus, broadly, is that the 35-year bull market in bonds is over, inflation is back, central banks are maxed out, and for the...

>Vivendi is the top investor in Telecom Italia.Il Sole 24 Ore daily reported on Friday Vivendi and its leading shareholder and Chairman Vincent Bollore would be willing to consider a revised deal with Mediaset that divided control of the group's Mediaset Premium pay-tv unit among the broadcaster, the French...

>The Markit/CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) edged up to 52.8 from 52.6 last month, helped by improved readings for commercial and civil engineering activity, as well as solid growth in house building.A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a reading of 52.2."UK construction...

>HONG KONG A long-awaited link between China's booming Shenzhen stock market and neighboring Honk Kong goes live on Monday, allowing foreign investors first-time access to some of the fastest growing technology companies in the world's second biggest economy.The link comes two years after regulators approved the Shanghai-Hong Kong stock...

>Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said in a statement that the servers to be used in the alleged cyber attack were located in the Netherlands, and were registered to a Ukrainian web hosting company called BlazingFast.The attack was to have started on Dec. 5, and...

>BANGKOK Thailand's new king on Friday made his first public appearance since ascending the throne the previous day, ending a period of uncertainty since the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, on Oct. 13.King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, 64, took part in a merit-making ceremony at Bangkok's Grand Palace...

>The ISA was first adopted in 1996 to punish investments in Iran's energy industry and deter its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The extension was passed unanimously on Thursday.U.S. officials said the ISA's renewal would not violate the nuclear agreement between Tehran and six major powers, under which Iran...

>TOKYO Japan's third quarter economic growth is forecast to be revised up slightly thanks to better-than-expected capital investment, a Reuters poll showed, though recovery is still seen likely to be slow given feeble domestic demand. The Japanese economy, the world's third-largest, was thought likely to expand an annualized 2.4...

>The European Central Bank is expected to announce a six-month extension to its quantitative easing program next week, according to a majority of economists polled by Reuters, who also expect the bank to keep the size of its monthly asset purchases unchanged.ECB President Mario Draghi said on Wednesday the...

>SINGAPORE/HONG KONG Thousands of clients are being booted out of bank accounts in Asia's wealth management industry, which is cleaning up after a money laundering scandal in Malaysia, the 'Panama Papers' expose, and a global push for tax transparency, bankers say."For some global wealth managers, up to 30 percent of...

>Obama, on Friday, is expected to uphold the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' (CFIUS) recommendation that Aixtron's sale to the Chinese investment fund be stopped, Bloomberg said, citing sources. bloom.bg/2geoLp4Obama's office could not be reached for comment immediately by Reuters outside regular business hours.In November,...

>BROWNSVILLE, Texas The rust-colored border security fence starts in a dusty field on the Loop family farm in South Texas - about 15 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico and a mile north of the southern U.S. border.From there, near Brownsville, it stretches about 60 miles west,...

>China reports a high rate of accidents and natural disasters every year due its vast geography and its relatively low public safety and building standards. The government has pledged to improve the country's poor safety record. Incidents are often met with an outpouring of public grief and anger that the...

>SEOUL/TOKYO South Korea and Japan said on Friday they would impose new unilateral sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, following a fresh U.N. Security Council resolution imposed on the reclusive country this week.North Korea has rejected the U.N. resolution, aimed at cutting...