News Archive - 13 January 2017

>In excerpts from an hourlong interview published by the Journal on Friday, Trump said: "If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody’s doing some really great things?"Trump suggested he might do away with the sanctions - imposed by the...

>LONDON European Central Bank officials are unlikely to make any change in policy on Thursday, while data from the United States will help the Federal Reserve decide whether to immediately follow December's rate increase with another.Recent data from the euro zone suggests the bloc's economy ended 2016 on a...

>If confirmed in the No. 2 spot at the Justice Department, Rosenstein would be in charge of any investigation into Hillary Clinton, after Trump's choice for attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions, said during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he would recuse himself from any Clinton-related matters.Clinton, the Democratic...

>SAN FRANCISCO The judge overseeing the U.S. bankruptcy case of Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd (117930.KS) said on Friday he will likely announce on Wednesday whether he will approve the South Korean company's sale of its stake in a U.S. terminal operator after conferring with his South Korean...

>The committee plans to interview senior officials of both the Trump and Obama administrations and may issue subpoenas to compel testimony, the panel's Republican chairman, Richard Burr, and its top Democrat, Mark Warner, said in a statement. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Eric Walsh)...

>LOS ANGELES Sony Entertainment Chief Executive Michael Lynton will step down to become chairman of the board of messaging app owner Snap Inc, a move that puts an experienced Hollywood executive in a prominent role as the technology company prepares for an initial public offering. Lynton will give up his...

>NEW YORK Moody's Corp (MCO.N) has agreed to pay nearly $864 million to settle with U.S. federal and state authorities over its ratings of risky mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.The credit rating firm...

>NEW YORK Rex Tillerson, the former oil executive under consideration for U.S. secretary of state, is trying to avoid giving testimony in a federal lawsuit over climate change, according to a lawyer for a group of teenagers who filed the suit.Lawyers for the teenagers, who sued the federal...

>WASHINGTON The incoming U.S. administration’s tough talk against China has set the stage for showdowns on everything from security to trade and cyberspace, but contradictory signals are sowing uncertainty over how far President-elect Donald Trump is prepared to go in confronting Beijing.Highlighting the contested South China Sea as...

>NEW YORK Americans are more concerned than they were before the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign began about the potential threat Russia poses to the country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday.The Jan. 9-12 survey found that 82 percent of American adults, including 84 percent of...

>The accident derailed SpaceX’s expectations of $1.8 billion in launch revenue in 2016, an analysis of the privately held firm’s financial documents showed, according to the Journal, which said it had obtained the documents. SpaceX declined to comment on the Journal’s report. In a statement emailed to Reuters, SpaceX...

>NEW YORK U.S. bank stocks will stay in favor with investors as long as earnings reports in the coming week show an improving profit outlook while investors wait to see if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lives up to his campaign promises.Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC.N), JPMorgan...

>TORONTO Canadian financial services group Desjardins is selling Western Financial, an insurance brokerage unit in Western Canada, six years after acquiring the business, sources familiar with the sale said.The asset, which includes a brokerage and a life insurance business, could be worth about C$500 million ($381 million), according to...

>Intrawest Resorts Holdings Inc (SNOW.N), the owner of some of the most popular ski resorts in North America, is working with investment banks on a possible sale, people familiar with the matter said this week. The sale process will test the value of Intrawest's seasonal ski business, which has...

> (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by Eric Walsh)...

>WASHINGTON An unprecedented pre-presidential inauguration feud between Donald Trump and intelligence agencies that soon will be under his command could harm U.S. security if not quickly defused, current and former government officials said.They said morale at the CIA and other agencies was already sagging because of disputes with...

>WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a case involving a New Mexico-based investment adviser that has the potential to limit the Securities and Exchange Commission's powers to recover illegal profits reaped by fraud or other wrongdoing.The court will hear an appeal filed by investment...

>PANAMA CITY Hundreds of Cubans who sold their homes and belongings in pursuit of an American dream that now lays in tatters were stranded in Central America and Mexico on Friday after Washington abruptly ended a lenient immigration policy.U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday repealed a measure granting...

>SANTA BARBARA, Calif. Nearly every technology startup wants the same thing: more data.But in the rush to collect all manner of information about customers, tensions are rising in Silicon Valley over whether such practices amount to a form of surveillance that customers will ultimately find invasive.Whether ordering an...

>Hesse, which is the home state of Deutsche Boerse, has the authority to veto a merger of the two exchange operators. Michael Busser, a spokesman for Hesse, declined to say who would attend the meeting, saying the deliberations were confidential. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the meeting will be...

>Linde shares jumped 11 percent on Aug. 16 when the talks were announced, their biggest single-day percentage gain in almost eight years."We have finished our routine analysis. The second step is now a formal insider investigation," a Bafin spokeswoman said on Friday, confirming a report to be published later...

>WASHINGTON U.S. House Republicans moved ahead on Friday with legislation aimed at dismantling Obamacare, despite concerns about not having a replacement for the healthcare program and the potential financial cost of repealing President Barack Obama's landmark law.Moderate Republican Representative Charlie Dent said he had reservations about voting for...

>Last year LeEco's founder and chairman Jia Yueting said that his company was facing financial obstacles due to the rapid pace of growth in various businesses, but the company soon afterwards announced it had secured commitments for $600 million to support its automotive and other high-tech businesses.Sunac, through its...

>Trump, who takes office next Friday, said last month he viewed costs for the aerospace company's F-35 fighter as too high and would ask Boeing to price out an upgraded F-18. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Writing by Washington Newsroom)...

>International investigators have said for the first time that they suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according to a document seen by Reuters.A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the Organisation for the...

>The accord has been under negotiation for more than one year and follows an agreement last year on derivatives.U.S. and EU representatives said in a joint statement they had reached a deal "that will ensure ongoing robust insurance consumer protection and provide enhanced regulatory certainty for insurers and...

>"TPP is dead. I cannot stress that more strongly," said the adviser, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly for the administration that takes office on Jan. 20. "TPP, or a multilateral agreement that looks like TPP but is called something else, is emphatically dead."On...

>NEW YORK Executives of big U.S. banks expressed optimism on Friday about the outlook for 2017 in their first public comments about quarterly earnings since the U.S. presidential election in November.JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp, the two largest U.S. banks, kicked off...

>The Justice Department said on Thursday it would investigate the FBI actions. FBI Director James Comey said on Oct. 28 the agency was reviewing emails that might be relevant to a previous inquiry into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, then announced on...

>MUMBAI/BENGALURU Infosys Ltd (INFY.NS), India's second-biggest software services exporter, pared its full-year revenue growth outlook as it fights uncertainties in its biggest markets that could curb client spending on technology.Infosys and its rivals in India's $150 billion software services sector have struggled in recent quarters as major clients...

>BEIRUT Iran's Revolutionary Guards look set to entrench their power and shift the country to more hardline, isolationist policies for years to come following the death of influential powerbroker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.Former president Rafsanjani long had a contentious relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is...

>Xi will be the first Chinese president to ever attend the WEF's annual forum in Davos, which brings together top-level political and business leaders.This year's meeting, from Jan. 17-20, is expected to be dominated by discussion of public hostility toward globalization and the rise of U.S. President-elect Donald...

>JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) reported a 24 percent rise in fourth-quarter profits on Friday, beating analyst expectations, as its Wall Street business benefited from a surge in trading activity following the U.S. election.JPMorgan, the largest U.S. lender, said earnings rose to $6.7 billion, or...

>WASHINGTON U.S. retail sales rose in December amid strong demand for automobiles and furniture, providing further evidence that the economy ended the fourth quarter with momentum and is poised for stronger growth this year.The strengthening economy also is starting to generate higher inflation. Other data on Friday showed...

>U.S. stocks were higher in morning trading on Friday, boosted by bank stocks after better-then-expected quarterly profits from Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan, which bode well for the rest of the earnings season.Bank of America (BAC.N) jumped 2.1 percent to $23.41, their highest...

>Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, reported its fifth straight drop in quarterly profit on Friday as it works to recover from a bogus-accounts scandal.The San Francisco-based bank has been dealing with multiple lawsuits and a sharp drop in account openings after...

>"Totally made up facts by sleazebag political operatives, both Democrats and Republicans - FAKE NEWS! Russia says nothing exists," Trump said in a series of posts on Twitter."Probably released by 'Intelligence' even knowing there is no proof, and never will be," he said. On Wednesday, U.S. spy chief...

>North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who took office last month in the height of tensions surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline, said he believed the line would eventually be built and asked opponents to clean their protest camp before spring floodwaters create a potential ecological disaster. A centrist Republican with no...

>The government has said it wants to encourage the development and testing of autonomous driving technology in Britain, helping build an industry to serve a worldwide market it reckons could be worth around 900 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion) by 2025.On Friday Nissan said a modified version of its...

>Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) reported a near-50-percent jump in fourth-quarter profit on Friday due to cost cuts and higher trading revenue, and its finance chief forecast sturdy income growth ahead thanks to rising interest rates.The Charlotte, N.C.-based lender's earnings surged 47 percent in the quarter...

>With the backdrop of family photos, cups hanging from kitchen cabinets and clusters of used beer and wine bottles, Abe ate Duterte's favorite breakfast in Davao City and was given a tour of his creaky, two-storey house, including a bedroom featuring the mosquito net he sleeps under on most weekends.

>HO CHI MINH CITY Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday he was confident the next administration would stick to the same peaceful principles on Asian security as the current one, despite hawkish comments from President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks.Referring to the disputed South China...

>AMMAN Syrian army command said on Friday that Israeli artillery fired rockets at a major military airbase outside Damascus, and warned Israel of repercussions for what it called a "flagrant" attack.Explosions were heard in the capital, and residents in the southwest suburbs saw a large plume of smoke rising...

>Troops further north, meanwhile, entered the Mosul University complex in the northeast, a Reuters reporter said. Its capture would help parallel advances towards bridges over the Tigris river.Elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) units reached the southern 2nd Bridge, also called Freedom Bridge, one of five running across the river...

>KKR will pay 1,450 yen for Hitachi Koki's stock, bringing the total deal size at 147.1 billion yen ($1.28 billion).Hitachi Koki shares closed at 1,508 yen on Friday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, valuing the company at 186 billion yen.The deal would be KKR's second Japanese...

>BEIJING China's massive export engine sputtered for the second year in a row in 2016, with shipments falling in the face of persistently weak global demand and officials voicing fears of a trade war with the United States that is clouding the outlook for 2017.In one week, China's leaders...

>SEOUL Samsung Group leader Jay Y. Lee left the South Korean special prosecutor's office early on Friday after more than 22 hours of questioning on bribery suspicions in an influence-peddling scandal that could topple President Park Geun-hye.Lee left the special prosecution office without answering reporters' questions and headed to...