Bloomberg The New York investor Robert Mercer, whose hedge fund avoided an estimated $6 billion in taxes through trades the Internal Revenue Service is challenging, has been funding a group that’s paying for an unrelated Tea Party lawsuit against the tax agency. Mercer’s family foundation gave $500,000 in 2014 to a group called Citizens for Self Governance, according to a ...
Read More »USA nod for 110 daily flights to Cuba
WASHINGTON / AFP The United States and Cuba will sign a bilateral agreement authorising up to 110 scheduled daily commercial flights to Havana and nine other destinations on the communist island. The deal restores regular flights between the two countries for the first time in more than half a century. Once the accord is signed, US authorities will immediately invite ...
Read More »Brazilian ‘real’ volatile amid political tension
Rio De Janeiro/BLOOMBERG The Brazilian real became more volatile as the government tries to push Congress to pass a proposed tax increases to avoid other levies that could further weigh on economic growth. One-week implied volatility surged 0.6 percentage point to 19.24 percent, the second-highest among the world’s 16 most- traded currencies. The real slumped 0.2 percent to 4.0059 per ...
Read More »Maduro replaces head of economic team after 5 weeks
Washington / AFP Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro named a new head of his economic team just five weeks after he had handed the job to a widely criticized professor who blamed the world’s fastest inflation on the country’s “parasitic†business class. Luis Salas, who had held the post as economy vice president since Jan. 6, is leaving for family reasons, ...
Read More »Supreme Court vacancy gives Clinton, Cruz new advantages
Bloomberg Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death not only unleashed a bitter partisan debate over the president’s powers, it has also shaken up both party’s presidential nominating contests and provided ready ammunition for volleys fired between the candidates’ camps. The ultimate beneficiaries could be Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Ted Cruz, and the battle itself could reshape the US Senate, the ...
Read More »Ukraine’s prez seeks embattled PM resignation
KIEV / AFP Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to resign in the face of the government’s perceived failure to fight endemic corruption and overcome a deep economic crisis. Poroshenko’s dramatic intervention came as opinion polls showed growing public disenchantment with the pro-Western team that took over the leadership of the former Soviet nation after ...
Read More »ANC favours CEOs over labour unions to stem economic crisis
Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has jilted its long-standing labor union allies and is courting business leaders to help it rescue an economy teetering on the brink of a recession and a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating to junk. Union leaders were conspicuous by their absence at meetings convened since late January by President Jacob Zuma and ...
Read More »Turkey govt ready for Syria ground operation with allies
Bloomberg Turkey said on Tuesday it wanted a ground operation in neighbouring Syria with its international allies, as a UN envoy held talks in Damascus aimed at saving a troubled ceasefire plan. Tensions escalated over Russia’s air war in support of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, with Ankara branding it “vile, cruel and barbaric†and EU President Donald Tusk saying ...
Read More »A jurist of colossal consequence
Antonin Scalia, who combined a zest for intellectual combat with a vast talent for friendship, was a Roman candle of sparkling jurisprudential theories leavened by acerbic witticisms. The serrated edges of his most passionate dissents sometimes strained the court’s comity and occasionally limited his ability to proclaim what the late Justice William Brennan called the most important word in the ...
Read More »UAE, India must build on strategic ties
The UAE-India friendship has not only been accelerated by business ties, but also cultural links, age-old maritime trade and vibrant people-to-people contacts. The two nations have potential and success models to share. Each has what it takes to strengthen cooperation with the other side. In recognition of the economic weight of the UAE, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited the ...
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