Washington / AFP Ted Cruz and John Kasich have decided to join forces to try to deny frontrunner Donald Trump their Republican Party’s presidential nomination, their campaigns said. The sudden alliance revealed in short statements arose due to the pressing timing of their party’s presidential primary season: Trump, a wealthy property developer and reality television star, has pushed close ...
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April, 2016
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25 April
Austrian govt in shock as far-right triumphs
Vienna / AFP Austria’s government was licking its wounds on Monday after the anti-immigration far-right triumphed in presidential elections, in a debacle of historic proportions for a cosy political establishment seen as out of touch and ineffectual. According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) came a clear first with 36 percent of the vote in ...
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25 April
A manifesto to mend American politics
It has become a truism to say that the American political system is suffering from dysfunction. But weirdly, even the insurgent candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, don’t talk much about how they would fix it. This is a populist insurgency without a clear manifesto. So it’s refreshing to hear Rep. John Sarbanes present a detailed action plan to ...
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25 April
Chernobyl teaches a lesson in N-safety
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster left a trail of destruction. The worst nuclear accident was blamed on human error triggered by flawed Soviet reactor technology. Fukushima was another rude awakening in March 2011 when the world discovered similar challenges. Human error was again detected after the world felt it had drawn lessons from Chernobyl to avoid nuclear ...
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25 April
Americans fall out of love with owning stocks
Barry Ritholtz Before the Great Recession, almost two-thirds of Americans owned stocks. That number has since fallen to a little more than half, as you can see from the chart below: This is an important development with ramifications for retirement planning, demographics and income inequality. First, a little history: Since late in the last century, one of the defining ...
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25 April
The Federal Reserve’s inflation fail
Most central bankers would agree that their primary goal is to give people and companies confidence that inflation will remain stable over the long term. Unfortunately, the U.S. Federal Reserve may be failing at that task. The Fed began pulling back on its efforts to stimulate growth back in May 2013, when then-Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central ...
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25 April
ECB Draghi’s growth streak seen tarnished in data splurge
Bloomberg A suite of euro-area data will provide Mario Draghi with his first simultaneous dispatches from both fronts in his struggle to boost inflation—showing how he still has a fight on his hands. Gross domestic product numbers, in a newly accelerated publication just one month after the first quarter ended, will coincide with the usual end-of-the-month inflation statistics to ...
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25 April
Citigroup names Davison head of Investment Banking for FIG
Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. has named Piers Davison head of its financial institutions group’s investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Davison joins Citigroup from JPMorgan Chase & Co. where he was most recently in charge of U.K. FIG, and was the head of banks for EMEA, Citigroup said on Monday in a memo, which was obtained by ...
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25 April
Standard Bank’s dual CEOs get 43 percent pay hike
Bloomberg The combined compensation for Standard Bank Group Ltd.’s joint Chief Executive Officers Sim Tshabalala and Ben Kruger rose 43 percent after full-year profit climbed by a third. Kruger’s total pay was 30.79 million rand ($2.1 million), including incentive awards amounting to 22 million rand, giving the CEO an increase of 61 percent from a year earlier, according to ...
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25 April
Bank of America taps Rizzo as head of EMEA investment bank
Bloomberg Bank of America Corp appointed Luigi Rizzo as head of investment banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as the bank gives some senior employees newly expanded responsibilities in that division. Rizzo will report locally in his newly created role to Bob Elfring, head of EMEA corporate and investment banking, according to the memo, which was obtained ...
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