Erdogan’s trip to Russia a pragmatic move

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived Russia on Tuesday for his first meeting with counterpart Vladimir Putin since the two strongmen began healing a bitter feud over Ankara’s downing of a Russian warplane last November. The shooting down of a Russian jet saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a bitter war of words. Putin ...

Read More »

Emerging-market rally gains as China data improves

  Bloomberg Emerging-market stocks and currencies advanced for a fourth day as narrowing Chinese factory deflation signaled the world’s second-largest economy is stabilizing. Indian bonds rallied after the central bank said it’s keeping accommodative policy. Raw-material producers touched a 13-month high paced by South Korean steelmaker Posco, while stocks in the Philippines rose for a second day. Data out of ...

Read More »

Qatar up on emerging fund inflows, Gulf slightly higher

DUBAI / Reuters Qatar’s main stock index outperformed its peers in early trade on Tuesday as emerging market funds continue to hunt for bargains there. Doha’s main index rose 0.7 percent as 11 of the 12 Qatari shares that are members of the MSCI emerging market index advanced. Petrochemical conglomerate Industries Qatar was up 2.2 percent and Qatar National Bank ...

Read More »

Gulf may have firm tone on emerging market inflows

  DUBAI / Reuters Gulf stock markets may have a firm tone as emerging market funds continue to hunt for bargains. Bank of America Merrill Lynch data released at the end of last week noted investors’ search for yield had led to the largest five-week inflow on record to emerging market debt funds and the longest inflow streak to equity ...

Read More »

Putin, Erdogan pledge to rebuild ‘strained’ relations

  Saint Petersburg / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday looked to rebuild ties as they met for the first time since Ankara downed one of Moscow’s warplanes in November. Erdogan’s visit to Putin’s hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him last month that ...

Read More »

Saudi-led strikes push Qaeda out of Yemen town

  Aden / AFP Air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition have forced Al-Qaeda fighters out of a key town in southern Yemen, a security official said on Tuesday. “Al-Qaeda militants have withdrawn from Azzan, the second city in Shabwa province, after coalition raids targeted their gatherings in the city” on Monday night, the official said. A resident said by telephone ...

Read More »

France seals €1bn military helicopter sale to Kuwait

  Paris / AFP France will supply 30 military helicopters to Kuwait in a deal worth over one billion euros ($1.1 billion) that French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian signed in the Gulf state on Tuesday. The agreement to buy the versatile Airbus Caracal helicopters is part of a 2.5 billion euro package of deals that the two countries agreed ...

Read More »

Anti-IS campaign enters third year

  Washington / AFP The US-led military effort against the IS group started exactly two years ago, aimed at halting the extremists as they swept across Iraq, leaving a trail of human butchery and destruction in their wake. It was supposed to have been a swift and narrow campaign that would help local forces deal a “lasting defeat” to IS ...

Read More »

Economics without math is trendy but doesn’t add up

  There’s no question that mainstream academic macroeconomics failed pretty spectacularly in 2008. It didn’t just fail to predict the crisis — most models, including Nobel Prize-winning ones, didn’t even admit the possibility of a crisis. The vast majority of theories didn’t even include a financial sector. And in the deep, long recession that followed, mainstream macro theory failed to ...

Read More »

Brazil’s mood towards Olympics swings positive

  Mac Margolis I have a confession: The other day I went sailing in Rio de Janeiro. I took the whole family, in fact, on a blustery, pre-Olympic afternoon. And we enjoyed it. There were no shoals of garbage, no bodies bobbing in brine, as so many alarming pre-Olympic dispatches have warned. True, my daughter didn’t feel so well, but ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend