Bloomberg Christine Lagarde is likely to avoid jail time and keep her job as head of the IMF after she was ordered to stand trial in France on charges that carry a potential prison term. Lagarde, 60, on Friday lost a bid to challenge a December decision to be tried for alleged negligence during her time as French finance ...
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Pound outlook darkens as signs of Brexit fallout emerge after brief resilence hopes
Bloomberg The pound’s recent resilience may prove short-lived as data showed the first indications that the U.K. economy may be faltering one month after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Inflation and labor figures covering the pre-Brexit period, released earlier this week, beat analyst predictions and helped the currency climb from a 31-year low versus the dollar set ...
Read More »Husky hits snag in efforts to contain Saskatchewan oil spill
Bloomberg Husky Energy Inc. is running into difficulty containing and cleaning up a 1,570-barrel oil pipeline spill that entered the North Saskatchewan River in Canada this week, after rising water levels compromised its initial plan to capture the release. The company responded when a sheen on the water indicated a spill, and discovered it was from the failure of ...
Read More »Canadian consumer inflation stable in June at 1.5%
Ottawa / AFP Largely driven by housing, Canadian consumer prices rose 1.5 percent in June over a year ago, the same rate recorded in May, the Canadian government reported on Saturday. The pace fell short of analyst forecasts, which had predicted a rise in the consumer price index of 1.7 percent. Housing prices were up 1.6 percent after rising ...
Read More »Turkey extends police powers, shutters schools after botched coup
Istanbul / AFP Turkey pushed on Saturday with a sweeping crackdown against suspects accused of taking part in the failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, extending police powers to hold people in detention and shuttering over 1,000 private schools. A week after renegade soldiers tried to oust him with guns, tanks and F16s, Erdogan’s government has rounded up ...
Read More »India steps up search for missing military plane
Chennai /Â AFP India on Saturday stepped up a major search operation for an air force plane that disappeared over the Bay of Bengal the day before with 29 people on board, as the defence minister headed to the region. The AN-32 military transport plane was on a routine flight from the southern city of Chennai to Port Blair, capital ...
Read More »China’s workforce may decline 23% by 2050
Beijing / AFP The size of China’s workforce may decline by as much as 23 percent by 2050, a government official said, as the population of the world’s second-largest economy rapidly ages. China’s working age population, defined as those between the ages of 16 and 59, peaked in 2011 and would soon “experience a process of sharp declineâ€, particularly after ...
Read More »Munich gunman ‘obsessed’ with mass killings
Munich, Germany /Â AFP The lone teenager who shot dead nine people in a gun rampage in Munich was “obsessed” with mass killers such as Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the IS group, police said on Saturday. Europe reacted in shock to the third attack on the continent in just over a week, after ...
Read More »64 dead as IS claims twin blasts during Kabul protest
Kabul /Â AFP IS extremist group claimed responsibility for twin explosions on Saturday that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 64 people and wounding 265 others in their first major attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings, apparently aimed at sowing sectarian discord in a country well known for Shia-Sunni harmony, came as thousands of ...
Read More »Clinton picks senator Kaine for running mate
Washington / AFP Hillary Clinton tapped Tim Kaine, a popular Spanish-speaking senator from the swing state of Virginia, to be her running mate in the White House showdown against Donald Trump. The pick comes three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton — and now Kaine — will be elevated as the nominees ...
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