CAPE TOWN / Reuters Africa could become a significant global market for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) by 2025, with Egypt the main driver, as more countries eye gas-to-power projects, a senior official at Total said on Tuesday. With hundreds of millions of people living without electricity in the world’s poorest continent, African countries are increasingly turning to gas ...
Read More »Britain backtracks over listing foreign workers
London / AFP The British government stepped back on Sunday from a plan to make employers list their foreign workers as it talks tough on immigration following the Brexit vote, after a backlash among business leaders. “We are not going to be asking companies to list or name or publish or identify their foreign workers,†Defence Secretary Michael Fallon ...
Read More »May seeks to charm EU states as opposition to hard Brexit mounts
Bloomberg U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will begin a diplomatic offensive on Monday amid mounting international concern and domestic opposition to her so-called hard Brexit rhetoric for leaving the European Union. May will go to Denmark and the Netherlands for talks with other EU leaders as comments suggesting that her priority will be to curb immigration spurred concern of ...
Read More »Merck’s drug succeeds in lung cancer test, could become standard
Bloomberg Merck & Co.’s cancer treatment Keytruda was almost twice as successful at shrinking lung cancer tumors than a standard chemotherapy regimen, a study of the drug in previously untreated patients found. In the 123-patient study, 55 percent of those on Keytruda plus two chemotherapy drugs saw their tumors get smaller, compared with 29 percent on just the chemotherapy ...
Read More »Sweden’s $34bn pension fund can’t be happier out of bonds
Bloomberg Unlike many pension investors, Sweden’s 300 billion-krona ($34 billion) AP7 fund, can to a large extent stay away from the bond markets. It’s manager, Richard Grottheim, is remarkably positive. As political risk mounts in Europe and the U.S., and as central banks are greasing financial markets with ever more free cash, Grottheim says it will likely all work ...
Read More »Ditch the ‘Hard Brexit’ fallacy
Will Brexit be hard or soft? The question preoccupies British politicians and commentators — not to mention global currency markets, if the sharp fall in sterling this week is any guide. Despite its command of the discussion, however, this hard-or-soft framing is unhelpful. It’s best dropped altogether. Sterling slumped after Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Oct. 2 that ...
Read More »Clinton’s lead doesn’t depend on a debate
General-election debates rarely cause major changes in voters’ choices. That’s what political scientists believe for the most part. Yet after the first presidential debate, on Sept. 26, Hillary Clinton moved back into a strong lead over Donald Trump. Indeed, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecasts, her chances of winning bottomed out on that very day (at 55 percent), and have ...
Read More »Mixed US jobs report won’t be Fed tiebreaker
There had been hope the U.S. jobs report for September released on Friday would show faster wage growth and a rising labor participation rate. It had both, though the data was otherwise mixed. After the disappointing drop for August, wage growth picked up to an annualized rate of 2.6 percent in September. Along with an increase in the number of ...
Read More »Protectionism calls for global coordination
The world is in the grip of surging protectionism. The anti-free trade and anti-globalization sentiments are taking deep roots. Populism is swaying the masses. The odds seem to be conspiring against an already fragile economic growth. International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns of “low growth trap†in the next few years. Despite warnings and calls to stop the tide of ...
Read More »Garden, like Obamacare, will prove hard to uproot
Michelle Obama has spent a long time building a “kitchen garden†for the White House, intended as an example to the nation of local eating and healthy food. Now that she’s leaving the White House, she doesn’t want to see it wither away. Politico reports: Obama on Wednesday afternoon will formally unveil a much bigger version of the garden ...
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