December, 2016

• 3 December

  SoftBank CEO says $100bn tech fund ‘oversubscribed’

    Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp. is close to tying up $100 billion for a technology fund that it announced with the government of Saudi Arabia, the Japanese company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son said. “I am talking to a few investors and I think we are oversubscribed,” Son said at an event in New Delhi on Friday, without ...

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• 3 December

  Malaysia to ease onshore hedging rules as ringgit dips

  

    Bloomberg Malaysia said it would provide greater hedging flexibility in its onshore currency market after the central bank’s moves last month to discourage speculators saw the ringgit tumble toward its weakest since 1998. Overseas and domestic fund managers will be allowed to manage their foreign exchange exposure of as much as 25 percent of invested assets, the central bank ...

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• 3 December

  Tata trends on Twitter in India’s first corporate social faceoff

  

    Bloomberg The boardroom battles at the $100-billion Tata Group business empire have escalated into a Twitter war of the kind corporate India has never seen. Thousands of tweets with hashtags such as #WadiaTruthsTataLies, #CyrusMistryforGovernance and #RaTantrum are trending, steered by supporters of deposed chairman Cyrus Mistry. On the other side are #TataForIndia and #Support4Tata, maneuvered by the supporters of ...

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• 3 December

  Mass protest demands ouster, arrest of South Korea’s Park

  

    Seoul/ AFP Hundreds of thousands of protestors marched in Seoul for the sixth-straight week on Saturday to demand the ouster and arrest of scandal-hit President Park Geun-Hye ahead of an impeachment vote in parliament. Organisers claimed a turnout of more than one million for the candlelight rally in the South Korean capital, while police put the number at just ...

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• 3 December

  US to offer Kabul more support under Trump

    Kabul / AFP US President-elect Donald Trump has assured Afghanistan’s leader in a phone call that his administration stands ready to up support to the country if necessary, a Kabul statement said. “If Afghanistan needs more security assistance, his administration, after assessing the needs, will focus on providing more security support,” the statement released by President Ashraf Ghani’s office read. ...

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• 3 December

  Police fire teargas outside Sri Lanka parliament

    Colombo / AFP Police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse thousands of opposition-backed protestors outside parliament on Saturday as law makers debated the annual budget. Demonstrators led by loyalists of former president Mahinda Rajapakse held up traffic and blocked the main access to the parliament complex for several hours in the capital. Opposition lawmaker Ranjith Soysa said protesters ...

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• 3 December

  Malaysia blasts Myanmar over ‘ethnic cleansing’

  

    Maungdaw / AFP Malaysia accused Myanmar of engaging in the “ethnic cleansing” of its Rohingya minority on Saturday, as former UN chief Kofi Annan visited a burned out village in strife-torn Rakhine state. Tens of thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled their homes since a bloody crackdown by the Myanmar army in the western state of Rakhine sparked by a ...

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• 3 December

  Thai arrested for sharing new king article on Facebook

    Bangkok / AFP A prominent Thai dissident was arrested under the country’s draconian royal defamation law on Saturday for sharing a BBC Thai profile of the new King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Facebook, supporters said. Thailand’s monarchy is protected from any criticism inside the kingdom by a harsh lese majeste law, use of which has skyrocketed since the military seized ...

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• 3 December

  Gambia’s shock presidential election victor hails new era

  

    Banjul / AFP Opposition candidate Adama Barrow hailed a “new Gambia” after he pulled off a stunning presidential election victory, putting an end to the 22-year rule of Yahya Jammeh. Jammeh—who has been frequently accused over the years of suppressing his opponents—conceded defeat on television, accepting that Gambians had “decided that I should take the backseat”. Official results earlier showed ...

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• 3 December

  Norwegian’s flight expansion with Irish unit approved

  

    Bloomberg Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA won approval to expand flights to the U.S. using an Irish subsidiary, paving the way for the carrier to offer discount trans-Atlantic fares over the objections of domestic carriers and unions. The Department of Transportation found Ireland-based Norwegian Air International fit to serve U.S. destinations, according to a regulatory order on Friday. The decision ...

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