News Archive - 29 December 2016

>Brent crude LCOc1 was on track for a gain of around 50 percent, following a 35 percent tumble in 2015.Copper CMCU3 was up around 16 percent in 2016, compared with the previous year's 26 percent plunge.In China, an infrastructure and housing boom sparked a months' long rally in...

>HAVANA Downtown Havana resident Margarita Marquez says she received a special Christmas gift this year: web access at home, a rarity in a country with one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world.Marquez, a 67-year-old retired university professor, was among those selected by the government two weeks...

>The Shenzhen-based company, which competes with Sweden's Ericsson for the top spot in the global market for telecoms equipment, forecasts revenue will reach 520 billion yuan ($74.8 billion), said Eric Xu, Huawei rotating chief executive. (Reporting by Anne Marie Roantree; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)...

>Singapore Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on Friday shrugging off a second consecutive week of U.S. crude oil inventory builds, with a U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report late on Thursday indicating an unexpected rise in crude stocks.U.S. benchmark West Texas intermediate (WTI) CLc1...

>SINGAPORE Asian stocks and the dollar were off to a subdued start on Friday as investors took profits on the last trading day of 2016, while the euro briefly spiked in thin trade.The euro EUR=EBS jumped as much as 2 percent early on Friday, its biggest intraday gain since...

>LONDON Britain avoided a collapse in mergers and acquisitions activity after the shock Brexit vote as foreign companies used sterling's spectacular devaluation against the U.S. dollar to snap up British companies, Thomson Reuters data shows.British M&A totaled $177.5 billion in 2016, down sharply from the record $394.

>The euro was last up 0.8 percent at $1.0570 EUR= after briefly spiking to $1.0700, its highest since Dec. 8. On the last trading day of 2016, it was down 2.6 percent against the dollar for the year.The euro also soared against the Japanese currency.

> (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Eric Beech)...

>NEW YORK Supporters of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have appropriated the phrase "basket of deplorables" - used by Hillary Clinton during the campaign to pillory some of his backers - to plan an inauguration party called the "Deploraball." But while the intention might be to mock the defeated...

>"These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior," Obama said in a statement."These actions are not the sum total...

>HONOLULU/WASHINGTON President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and sanctioned Russian intelligence officials who Washington believes were involved in hacking U.S. political groups in the 2016 presidential election. The measures, taken during the last days of Obama's presidency, mark a new low in U.

>WILMINGTON, Del. Peabody Energy Corp said on Thursday it extended a deadline for creditors to join financing deals aimed at bringing the largest U.S. coal miner out of bankruptcy amid growing creditor support for its plan of reorganization.Last week, Peabody unveiled its plan to eliminate more than $5...

>OTTAWA Canada's answer to Donald Trump is a pediatric surgeon and former cabinet minister who, like the U.S. president-elect, is railing against immigration and political elites.Kellie Leitch, 46, has vaulted to the front of the race to lead the opposition Conservative Party by pushing a hard-right "Canadian values"...

>The patent application was filed two years ago but was spotted only on Wednesday by Zoe Leavitt, an analyst at technology data and research firm CB Insights.According to the patent filing, drones launched from the so-called "airborne fulfillment centers" (AFCs) would use far less power than those launched from...

>WASHINGTON General Cable Corp (BGC.N), a Kentucky-based wire manufacturer, agreed to pay more than $75 million to resolve allegations that it had bribed officials in Angola, Bangladesh and China, the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.The company admitted its executives knew outside...

>Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) is negotiating a deal to acquire Swiss biotechnology company Actelion Ltd (ATLN.S) that would separate its commercialized portfolio from its research and development assets, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.The deal structure would allow J&J to acquire Actelion with a cash...

>The blast caused no casualties, Zakharova said in a statement on the ministry's website. The embassy had been hit by shells twice on Wednesday. The ministry said the attacks were a provocation aimed at derailing a peace settlement. (Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Kevin Liffey)...

>WASHINGTON A drop in U.S. exports last month pushed the country's trade deficit in goods higher while the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell last week in a positive sign for the labor market.The two reports released on Thursday suggested that when Donald Trump becomes America's...

Tehran MP Mahmoud Sadeghi stirred controversy when he refused to be detained by judiciary officials after his controversial remarks.

Nuclear negotiator and ambassador to London Hamid Baeidinejad says the US’ ten-year extension of Iran Sanctions Act is not a breach from the nuclear deal.

In another step to tighten grip on the Internet, every platform with more than 5000 members will soon require authentication.

British officials’ recent remarks have offended Tehran, so bad it has already threatened to downgrade diplomatic ties with the UK, just upgraded to ambassador level in September.

Iran’s former ambassador to Russia, Nematollah Izadi has discussed bilateral ties and Russia’s dilemma between Iran and Israel in an interview with Iranian website Russia Viewer.

The Syrian army’s recapture of Aleppo is viewed as a turning point in the Syrian crisis that could strengthen the position of the Resistance front, hence Bashar al-Assad’s government.

A hardliner member of the parliament has claimed FM Zarif admitted botched job in nuclear talks.

Three and a half years into his first presidential term, Hassan Rouhani unveiled and signed the charter of citizen rights in a bid to realize one of his campaign promises.

Friday prayers on December 23, 2016.

Iranian experts and foreign ministry find the recent UN Security Council’s resolution on Israeli settlements a positive but mediocre development.

An open letter to Donald Trump by a group of lesser known ’liberal’ Iranians, that calls for re-enforcing sanctions, has infuriated Iranians.

Tens of homeless Iranians find shelter in empty graves, are promised better, and lose them in less than 24 hours.

>McCain, who is chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, also called President Putin "a thug and a murderer".Speaking on a tour of the Baltic states, where there is widespread concern that Moscow wants to reassert its power across the region, McCain said he had concerns about...

>TOKYO Faced with the prospect of a multi-billion-dollar writedown that could wipe out its shareholders' equity, Japan's Toshiba (6502.T) is running out of fixes: it is burning cash, cannot issue shares and has few easy assets left to sell.The Tokyo-based conglomerate, which is still recovering from a $1.

>MANILA Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte derided U.S. ambassadors as "spies" on Thursday, responding to a media report of an alleged American plot to destabilize his government, a job he said some envoys were appointed solely to do.The volatile former mayor said though had received no intelligence reports of...

>MOSCOW/ANKARA Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a ceasefire between Syrian opposition groups and the Syrian government starting at midnight on Thursday.The parties were also prepared to start peace talks, Putin said, after Moscow, Iran and Turkey expressed readiness to broker a deal to settle the nearly six-year-old Syrian war.

>MILAN/FRANKFURT The European Central Bank should have explained more clearly why it nearly doubled its estimated capital shortfall for the ailing Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS.MI) bank, which is being bailed out by the state, Italy's economy minister said. In unusually critical comments of the euro zone's single...

>Strong economic data and gains in healthcare stocks propped up Wall Street on Thursday, a day after the S&P 500 suffered its biggest fall in two months. A report showed the number of Americans applying for jobless claims fell by 10,000 to 265,000 last week, indicating sustained strength in the...

>Bombardier said the first 21 of the electric trains would be delivered in 2019.The Talent 3 is a multiple-unit railcar that allows for up to 50 percent more seating capacity than its predecessor generation, the Montreal-based company said. Austrian Federal Railways already operates 187 Talent-family trains. About 1,400 Talent...

>Abu Jandal al-Kuwaiti, a member of Islamic State's war committee, was killed on Monday by the Tabqa Dam, a strategic objective in northern Syria near Raqqa city, the jihadists' main stronghold in the country, the spokesman said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, had reported on...

>The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) did not give any details or time frame on relaxing restrictions for foreign investment in the financial services sector.At a press conference held after the release of the document, Ning Jizhe, vice chairman of the NDRC, said that the government will maintain...

>MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi security forces on Thursday began the second phase of their offensive against Islamic State militants in Mosul, pushing into some eastern districts where the battle has been in deadlock for nearly a month.Thousands of federal police troops who redeployed from Mosul's southern outskirts two weeks ago...

>In an interview with broadcaster AHaber, Cavusoglu also said all foreign fighter groups in Syria - including Hezbollah - need to leave the country. His comments come a day after Turkey said it and Russia had prepared an agreement for a ceasefire."We are on the verge of an agreement...

>After years of running flat out, U.S. Gulf Coast refiners are lining up repairs to plants in 2017 - but facing a severe labor shortage that could delay work, drive up costs and raise accident risks. Fuel producers such as Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC.N) and Valero Energy Corp...

>The story begins in 2009, when China launched a $600 billion economic stimulus program during the global financial crisis. It unleashed a wave of borrowing by state firms that is proving to be a burden today.China's debt this year reached more than 250 percent of GDP, much of it...

>The fiery-tempered former prosecutor said he once hurled a Chinese man suspected of rape and murder out of a helicopter."If you are corrupt, I will fetch you using a helicopter to Manila and I will throw you out. I have done this before, why would I not do it...