News Archive - 28 December 2016

There are serious issues in the mutual ties between Pakistan and India at the moment. Even though the sides are not in war, it seems that the two countries are in a situation similar to a virtual war on the line of control, which puts them in a situation...

>PALM BEACH, Fla. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that the United States and Russia lay to rest the controversy over Moscow's computer hacking of Democratic Party computers, saying, "We ought to get on with our lives."Trump has cast doubt on the findings of U.S. intelligence...

>"He called me. We had a very, very good talk ... generally about things. ... was a very, very nice call, and I actually thought we covered a lot of territory," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort."Our staffs are getting along very well and I'm getting along very well" with...

>Leshi Internet Information and Technology (300104.SZ) said in a filing to the stock exchange late Wednesday that its parent company had signed a framework agreement with the investor and the two sides were still discussing the final details.It did not disclose the identity of the investor, but the...

>A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said in a statement that checks in the matter "are still ongoing and this is neither confirmation or denial of what has been alleged"."The attorney-general, the police and prosecutors are working in close cooperation and a public announcement will be made in due course about...

>Singapore Oil prices fell in early trade in Asia on Thursday following a surprise build in U.S. crude stocks shown in data published by the American Petroleum Institute (API) late on Wednesday.U.S. benchmark West Texas intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 31 cents or 0.57 percent...

>TOKYO The dollar sagged against the yen early on Thursday as U.S. yields dropped overnight to two-week lows, but the greenback managed to hold steady against the euro and pound.The dollar was down 0.2 percent at 117.070 yen JPY=, having come down from a high of...

>PANGSAN, Myanmar China is extending its sway over an autonomous enclave run by Myanmar's most powerful ethnic armed group, sources in the region told Reuters, bolstering Beijing's role in the peace process that is the signature policy of Aung San Suu Kyi.The "foreign policy" of the self-proclaimed Wa State...

>SYDNEY Asian shares slipped on Thursday after Wall Street suffered a mild setback after weeks of gains, while the dollar stayed in demand as U.S. government debt offered ever-fatter premiums over euro zone bonds.Japan's Nikkei .N225 lost 0.7 percent, edging away from its recent one-year top. Australia's...

>Petrobras (PETR4.SA), as the company is known, announced in October a 25 percent cut in planned investments to reduce its debts and revive investor confidence sapped by a corruption scandal, including a commitment to pull out of the biofuel sector. Guarani runs seven sugar and ethanol mills in Brazil,...

>WASHINGTON The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.Both officials declined to...

>"I was just called by the head people at Sprint and they are going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States, they are taking them from other countries," Trump told reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "And also OneWeb, a new company, is going to be...

>SAO PAULO Brasil Pharma SA (BPHA3.SA), the country's third-largest drug retailer, has walked away from talks with Brazilian industrial conglomerate Ultrapar Participações SA (UGPA3.SA) to sell drugstore chain Distribuidora Big Ben SA, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Extrafarma SA, Ultrapar's drug retailing arm, offered...

>The proposed asset swap involved Boehringer Ingelheim's acquisition of Sanofi's $13.5 billion animal care subsidiary and Sanofi's obtaining the Germany company's consumer health care business unit, valued at nearly $8 billion, plus $5.5 billion in cash, the FTC said in a statement.Without the divestitures, the proposed swap...

>WASHINGTON Democrats on the U.S. Senate's environment panel on Wednesday asked President-elect Donald Trump's choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency to disclose his ties to the energy industry ahead of his confirmation hearing early next year.The six senators sent a letter to Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma...

>WASHINGTON President-elect Donald Trump's goal of overhauling the U.S. tax code in 2017 will depend partly on the work of an obscure congressional committee tasked with estimating how much future economic growth will result from tax cuts.Known as the Joint Committee on Taxation, or JCT, the nonpartisan panel...

>New York state's financial regulator on Wednesday revised a proposal for the nation's first cyber security rules for banks and insurers, loosening some security requirements and delaying implementation by two months to March 1.The rules from the New York State Department of Financial Services are being closely because they...

>Investors' enthusiasm for equities and corporate bonds showed little sign of waning during the latest week, with funds in both categories scooping up more money, data from the Investment Company Institute showed on Wednesday.Stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds netted $1.2 billion in the week through Dec. 21,...

>A divided federal appeals court has ruled that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative judges are not constitutionally appointed, raising the prospect that the U.S. Supreme Court may need to address the issue.The ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver...

>Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC (CD&R) is close to securing $6 billion from investors for its latest private equity fund, just a little more than two months after it began fundraising with a $8.5 billion target, according to sources familiar with the matter.The quick pace of fundraising reflects...

>WASHINGTON U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned on Wednesday that the future of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict was in jeopardy, saying the United States could not stay silent as violence and Israeli settlement building risked undermining peace.In a speech just weeks before the...

>Trump plans to make the statement between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. ET (2100 to 2200 GMT), incoming White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on a conference call, adding that the news "should be very positive for American workers."A wealthy New York businessman, Trump pledged during...

>The group said its pending home sales index, based on contracts signed in November, dropped 2.5 percent to 107.3."The brisk upswing in mortgage rates and not enough inventory dispirited some would-be buyers," the NAR said in a statement accompanying the figures. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast...

>Wall Street lost ground for the first time in three days on Wednesday due to declines across sectors, slowing the Dow's race to 20,000. The blue-chip index came within 19 points of the milestone shortly after the open, before slipping into negative territory as losses in Boeing (BA.N) offset...

>"It is now time for Russia to understand – enough is enough," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in the Latvian capital.Earlier this month, U.S. Republican and Democratic senators including Graham called for a special bipartisan panel to investigate cyber attacks against the United States by...

>JERUSALEM Israel pulled back from approving hundreds of new homes for Israelis in annexed East Jerusalem on Wednesday before a speech in which the U.S. Secretary of State was to give further voice to international opposition to settlement building.U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who had joined Israeli leaders...

>Wall Street looked set to open higher on Wednesday, with investors looking for catalysts that would nudge the Dow Jones Industrial Average beyond 20,000, a level it has never breached. The blue-chip index came within 20 points of the psychological milestone on Tuesday, helped by gains in technology stocks, which...

>MEXICO CITY Mexico aims to defend free trade with the United States by using border security and immigration policy to gain leverage in talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump after he takes office next month, senior officials say.To defuse Trump's threats to disrupt trade and investment, policymakers say...

>Bond yields have also surged and the cost of insuring against its debt have soared.Earlier this week, Toshiba said cost overruns at a U.S. nuclear business it bought from Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI.N) last year, CB&I Stone & Webster, meant it could face "several billion dollars"...

>The final part of the World Anti-Doping Agency's independent report into doping in Russia this month provided exhaustive evidence of an elaborate doping scheme but officials at the time denied it was a state-backed program.The report found more than 1,000 Russian competitors in more than 30 sports were involved...

>New Hope Group Co Ltd said in a statement on Tuesday shareholders and regulators had approved the name Sichuan XW Bank for the lender."This is an important step in the process, marking (the bank's) the official establishment," said the statement, citing an unnamed person in charge at the new...

>ANKARA/BEIRUT Turkey and Russia have prepared an agreement for a ceasefire in Syria, Turkey's foreign minister said on Wednesday, adding Ankara would not budge on its opposition to President Bashar al-Assad staying on as leader.The comments from Mevlut Cavusoglu appeared to signal tentative progress in talks aimed at reaching...

>To help explain what it all means, the Reuters graphics team has produced an animated guide to the often bewildering world of QQE, YYC and other tricks of the BOJ trade. (tmsnrt.rs/2igbqRk)Deploying "quantitative and qualitative easing" (QQE) policies, the BOJ has pumped a torrent of freshly minted yen into...

>In a statement, the military also said seven rebels had been wounded in clashes over the past day, while 154 Islamic State targets had been struck by artillery and other weaponry. Rebels supported by Turkish troops have laid siege to al-Bab for weeks under the "Euphrates Shield" operation launched by...