April, 2016

• 10 April

  OIC to focus on Palestine, terror at Turkey summit

  Istanbul / AFP The world’s Islamic countries began their annual meeting on Sunday in Istanbul, where they are set to focus on the Palestinian cause, conflicts in member states and combating terrorism. The meeting of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes once again at a time of turmoil in many Muslim nations, with conflicts in Syria and Yemen ...

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• 10 April

  Extremists ‘switched attack to Brussels from France’ as police closed in

  

  Brussels / AFP The Brussels-based IS extremists behind the Paris attacks planned a fresh strike in France but targeted the Belgian capital instead as police closed in, the federal prosecutor said on Sunday. The prosecutor also announced that the so-called “man in the hat” Mohamed Abrini had been charged with “terrorist murders” over the attacks in Brussels last month. Suicide ...

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• 10 April

  Has the USa turned against free trade agreements?

  

  As the current presidential election campaign gathers momentum in the United States, a remarkable distrust of free trade and globalization appears to have gained a voice in mainstream politics. Distrust and anger at unbalanced trade has facilitated the rise of Donald Trump, the Republican Party front-runner, and helped Bernie Sanders in his bid to win the Democratic Party nomination. Opposition ...

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• 10 April

  Subpoenaed into silence about global warming

  

  The Competitive Enterprise Institute is getting subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands to cough up its communications regarding climate change. The scope of the subpoena is quite broad, covering the period from 1997 to 2007, and includes, according to CEI, “a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate ...

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• 10 April

  ECB keen to act amid Europe’s fragility

  

  Lisbon / Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) officials underlined their readiness to further ease monetary policy as banking, political and sovereign fault lines showed the region remains vulnerable six years after the start of the debt crisis. In Frankfurt, the ECB’s home city, and Brussels, Europe’s nominal capital, policy makers said they’ll take whatever measures are required to help the ...

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• 10 April

  PBOC economists call for gradual adjustment in the reserve ratios

  

  Beijing / Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) should gradually adjust the amount of deposits that lenders lock away as reserves in accordance with the nation’s international balance of payments situation, according to economists at the central bank. The required reserve ratios (RRR) for commercial lenders should be raised or lowered to meet the country’s macroeconomic demands, researchers led ...

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• 10 April

  French bank chief ‘more worried about sector now than in 2009’

  

  Cernobbio / Reuters The chairman of France’s second-biggest retail bank is more worried about Europe’s banking sector now, in some ways, than when he took the reins at BPCE bank during the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. Francois Perol said on the sidelines of an economic conference in Italy that negative interest rates in the euro zone ...

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• 10 April

  Woods is BOE’s Deputy Governor for regulation

  

  Bloomberg Sam Woods, a former UK Treasury official, was appointed as Deputy Governor for regulation at the Bank of England (BOE), replacing Andrew Bailey. Woods — who will continue as the central bank’s executive director of insurance until the end of June — becomes Chief Executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, the UK’s main banking supervisor, the Treasury in London ...

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• 10 April

  Negative rates get ‘negative’ reviews at Como conference

  Bloomberg Negative interest rates, one of the latest central bank experiments to goad economies back into growth, got low marks at a financial and economic conference along Lake Como. Richard Koo, the chief economist at Nomura Research Institute, said such rates were “intellectually bankrupt.” Olivier Blanchard, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, said they interfere ...

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• 10 April

  Saudi’s Almarai posts profit rise, warns of tough market

  

  Reuters Higher sales helped Saudi Arabia’s Almarai to post a marginal rise in first-quarter net profit on Sunday, though the Gulf’s largest dairy company warned of challenging market conditions in the face of the region’s economic slowdown. Saudi companies are grappling with a protracted slump in oil prices that is putting government and consumer spending under pressure. One indicator of ...

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