June, 2016

• 5 June

  Brazil’s distressed-debt market predicted to jump 9% this year

  

    Bloomberg Brazil’s market for distressed consumer and small-business debt will increase about 9 percent this year as the nation’s worst recession in a century drives banks to sell assets, according to estimates by one of the biggest investors in the securities. Banks will unload portfolios of non-performing loans with a face value of about 25 billion reais ($7 billion) ...

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• 5 June

  Oil sheen seen on river after Oregon crude-train derails

  

    Bloomberg Environmental officials worked to contain a small sheen of oil on the Columbia River after a Union Pacific Corp. train carrying a load of Bakken crude derailed near Mosier, Oregon, according to the company. Access to the site remains limited as the train continues to cool off following a fire that broke out after Friday’s accident, the Federal ...

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• 5 June

  Troubled Venezuela’s bare fridges tell tales of woe

  

    AFP Mayra de Ramos stood in line all day to buy two packs of corn flour and pasta, but the Venezuelan grandmother says it won’t be enough. She lives with her three children and three young grandchildren in Catia, a downtrodden neighborhood in Caracas. “My refrigerator is bare,” the 64-year-old pensioner says, showing its empty shelves. “We don’t eat ...

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• 5 June

  IS kills dozens of its own in hunt for spies

  

    BAGHDAD/ AP In March, a senior commander with the IS group was driving through northern Syria on orders to lead militants in the fighting there when a drone blasted his vehicle to oblivion. The killing of Abu Hayjaa Al Tunsi, a Tunisian extremist, sparked a panicked hunt within the group’s ranks for spies who could have tipped off the ...

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• 5 June

  Philippine president-elect urges public to kill drug dealers

  

    MANILA / AP The Philippine president-elect has encouraged the public to help him in his war against crime, urging citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back in their neighbourhoods. In a nationally televised speech late Saturday, Rodrigo Duterte told a huge crowd in the southern city of Davao celebrating last month’s ...

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• 5 June

  US-backed Syrian rebels advance on IS bastion

  Beirut / AFP US-backed Syrian rebels advancing on IS group fighters in the strategic northern town of Manbij have progressed to within five kilometres of the extremist bastion, a monitor said on Sunday. Supported by air strikes by the US-led coalition battling IS in Syria and Iraq, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias launched an ...

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• 5 June

  Suspected extremists kill Bangladesh police officer’s wife

  Chittagong / AFP Suspected militants killed the wife of a senior anti-terror officer in the Bangladesh city of Chittagong on Sunday, the latest attack thought carried out by local extremists, police said. Three unidentified men stabbed and then shot Mahmuda Begum in the head as she walked her son to a school bus stop near her home, Chittagong Metropolitan Police ...

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• 5 June

  India poised to enter MTCR regime

    New Delhi / Tribune News Service India is widely expected to be the 35th member of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) this week, a move that will boost the country’s efforts to export and import missile technology subject to non-proliferation rules from friendly nations. If made partner in the regime, a precursor to being admitted into the Nuclear Suppliers’ ...

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• 5 June

  Let us count the ways India surpasses China

  

    When Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, speaks to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on June 8, he may find it hard to convince lawmakers of his country’s promise. He shouldn’t: As China, Russia and Brazil slow down, India is barreling ahead. It’s one of the brighter spots among all the emerging markets. True, India’s economic ...

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• 5 June

  Big data is still only a little helpful

    Leonid Bershidsky “Big data” is one of the tech world’s ubiquitous buzzwords. In the old days, people just called it data, but in Silicon Valley it’s not a thing unless it’s big. It’s not yet obvious, however, that data collected by various internet services is any more useful than those mined in more traditional ways — through surveys, for ...

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