March, 2017

• 15 March

  Boris Johnson in Somalia for surprise visit amid drought

  

    MOGADISHU / AP Britain’s foreign secretary made a surprise visit to Somalia on Wednesday for talks with the country’s new president as a worsening drought threatens millions of people in the Horn of Africa nation. “It is all so, such a shame that you are facing the problems that you are facing, particularly of course the drought and the ...

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• 15 March

  Ukraine announces economic blockade of rebel-held territory

    MOSCOW / AP Ukraine on Wednesday announced a transport blockade of rebel-held areas that is likely to cause serious economic disruption and could threaten a precarious cease-fire in the east of the country. “It will be in place until the occupiers return stolen Ukrainian industry to Ukrainian jurisdiction,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the country’s national security council in ...

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• 15 March

  Philippine VP blasts Duterte’s drug crackdown, cites abuses

  

    MANILA / AP The Philippine vice president is raising alarms about the president’s bloody crackdown on illegal drug use, which she says can’t be solved “with bullets alone,” adding that Filipinos should “defy brazen incursions on their rights.” Vice President Leni Robredo’s videotaped comments, which were issued to the media on Wednesday, are some of her sharpest critiques so ...

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• 15 March

  Winners in Obama’s US are still riding high

  

      While Friday’s jobs report was strong, a look through the details of the report shows that the same people who won in President Barack Obama’s America are the ones winning in the early months of President Donald Trump’s. Without policy proposals, currently lacking from the White House or Congress, that specifically target the types of voters who elected ...

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• 15 March

  Shortfall in bank ethics stretches to the very top

  

    One of the inescapable conclusions of the economic crisis that engulfed the world a decade ago was that the culture of banking needed to change. Allowing finance to regulate itself ended in spectacular failure, underwritten by the taxes of the masses who didn’t profit from the culture of risk-taking in those institutions. But the resignation this week of a ...

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• 15 March

  Don’t nix this Brexit fix

    Brexit was supposed to be about democracy: Those who wanted to leave the European Union argued that their rights were being trampled on by an unrepresentative EU bureaucracy. Now it’s the U.K. government that is paying insufficient attention to the interests of Brits — and it’s their unelected representatives in Parliament who are defending them. The Brexit referendum won ...

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• 15 March

  New travel ban will leave refugees in limbo

    US President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban faces scrutiny in courtrooms across the country. Several states and rights group have brought suits against Republican president’s executive order, supposedly a less draconian than the previous order issued on January 27, which met with deluge of opposition and was subsequently blocked by country’s federal courts. The revamped order bans all refugees ...

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• 15 March

  Stocks rise, Treasuries rally as Fed tightens

  

    Bloomberg US stocks extended gains, Treasuries rallied and the dollar tumbled after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates as expected while keeping steady its forecast that it will tighten a total of three times this year. The S&P 500 Index rose 0.5 percent, while the yield on 10-year Treasury notes tumbled to 2.53 percent at 2:02 p.m. in New ...

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• 15 March

  Gulf markets mixed but banks buoy Saudi

    DUBAI / Reuters Gulf stock markets were mixed on Wednesday but Saudi Arabia was boosted by banks after credit rating agency Moody’s raised its outlook for the kingdom’s banking system to “stable” from “negative”. The Saudi stock index climbed 0.7 percent as 11 of the 12 listed banks gained, with the biggest, National Commercial Bank, rising 2.4 percent. “Saudi ...

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• 15 March

  European stocks climb with miners on Fed and Dutch election day

    Bloomberg European stocks rose, lifted by gains in mining companies, as traders prepared for decisions by Federal Reserve officials and by Dutch voters that may give market signals for the region’s interest rates and politics. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose 0.4 percent at the close. Raw materials producers including Rio Tinto Plc and Glencore Plc led a rebound ...

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