February, 2017

• 7 February

  NATO presence in Baltics sends clear signal: Lithuania

  

    VILNIUS / AP Lithuania’s president says that large numbers of NATO forces being stationed in the Baltics sends a clear signal that the alliance stands “strong and united.” Dalia Grybauskaite says that Lithuania has “never before” seen “forces of such size and integrity” deployed in one of NATO’s easternmost countries close to key Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Grybauskaite spoke Tuesday ...

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• 7 February

  Activists say airstrikes kill 15 in rebel-held city

  

    BEIRUT / AP Airstrikes on a rebel-held city in Syria early Tuesday killed at least 15 people, wounded dozens more and demolished several buildings, in one of the deadliest attacks since a cease-fire went into effect last year, Syrian activists and medics said. The airstrikes hit the city of Idlib, the capital of a northwestern province of the same ...

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• 7 February

  Merkel in euroskeptic Poland in struggle to save EU

  

    WARSAW / AP German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits Warsaw on Tuesday for talks with Poland’s top leaders, taking efforts to save the European Union to a country that is keen to keep as much national power as possible and fears being marginalized in a “two-speed Europe.” Her trip is “one of the most important visits in Polish-German relations since ...

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• 7 February

  Romanian government seeks loophole on corruption

    BUCHAREST / AP Romania’s government is on a high-risk mission: devise a legal and politically acceptable way to remove penalties for some types of official corruption. First, the government tried to effect the change by imposing an emergency decree without public debate. The move backfired badly, sparking massive demonstrations in the capital of Bucharest and other major cities that ...

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• 7 February

  China’s central bank suspends reverse repos to drain liquidity

  

    Bloomberg China’s central bank refrained from offering reverse-repurchase agreements for the third day in a row, which resulted in a net withdrawal of funds from the financial system. The People’s Bank of China didn’t carry out the open-market operation because it aims to keep liquidity basically stable, and current levels are relatively high, according to a statement posted on ...

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• 7 February

  Indian lender shuns firms to become top Asian bank stock

  

    Bloomberg Indian Bank, a century-old state-owned lender based in the country’s south, has emerged as Asia’s top-performing bank stock in the past year, driven by a focus on consumer loans that are less likely to sour than corporate advances. The Chennai-based firm is aiming to boost retail lending, which includes mortgages and loans underpinned by gold as collateral, to ...

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• 7 February

  RBNZ governor to step down in September

    Bloomberg New Zealand central bank (RNBZ) governor Graeme Wheeler will step down when his term ends in September and hand the reins to a deputy until a permanent successor is appointed in 2018. Deputy Governor Grant Spencer will helm the Reserve Bank for six months after Wheeler departs on Sept. 26, Finance Minister Steven Joyce said on Tuesday in Wellington, ...

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• 7 February

  UniCredit begins $14bn cash call against shaky backdrop

  

    MILAN / Reuters UniCredit began Italy’s biggest corporate share sale in an attempt to raise 13 billion euros ($14 billion) to rebuild the bank’s capital after a balance sheet clean up. Banks in Italy have been struggling to deal with bad loans left behind by a deep recession, leading to a series of capital raisings and consolidation in the ...

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• 7 February

  Harvesting olives in West Bank

  

    Dura Al Qari’a / DPA Plastic tarps on the ground are slowly filling up with green and black olives. Imad Hasan, clad in a blue pullover, a cap and jogging pants, is standing on a metal ladder five metres above the ground, picking the olives by hand from the tree, the ripe fruit nestled between narrow pointed leaves. Down ...

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• 7 February

  Female engineer braves odds in Antarctica

  

    Carlini Base / DPA What’s it like to live surrounded by an immense swath of sea, ice and mountains, 900 kilometres from the nearest city? Julia Luna, 28, is the first woman to spend a winter here on Argentina’s Carlini Base, an Antarctic scientific research site. As a systems engineer, she has one of the most unusual jobs on ...

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