ICBPI hires UniCredit’s top official as CFO

  Bloomberg Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) SpA, the Italian banking-services provider owned by private-equity firms, hired Bernardo Mingrone from UniCredit SpA as chief financial officer, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mingrone will reorganize and develop ICBPI to prepare for a direct sale or a listing in the next three years, said one of the ...

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More Turkish tanks enter Syria in new front offensive

  Ankara / AFP Turkey on Saturday sent more tanks into the northern Syrian village of al-Rai to fight IS extremists, opening a new front after its intervention last month against the group, state media reported. The tanks crossed into the village from Elbeyli in the Turkish province of Kilis to provide military support to Syrian opposition fighters after ridding northern ...

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Reporter shot in Syria claims gunman now US-backed rebel

  London / AFP A reporter for Britain’s Times newspaper who hit the headlines after being kidnapped and shot in Syria said on Saturday that a recent Facebook video appeared to show the gunman was now a US-backed rebel. Anthony Loyd was seized along with photographer Jack Hill in 2014 as they were returning to Turkey after several days working in ...

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Myanmar peace summit ends with long road ahead

  Naypyidaw/ AFP Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi concluded a landmark peace summit with ethnic rebels on Saturday, calling it the first step on what promises to be a tough road to peace. The conference in the capital Naypyidaw was Suu Kyi’s first big drive to end ethnic minority insurgencies that have rumbled across Myanmar’s frontier states for nearly seven decades. ...

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Aby Sayyaf bomb kills 14 in Philippine’s Davao

  Davao / AFP Philippine authorities on Saturday blamed a notorious group of militants for the bombing of a night market in President Rodrigo Duterte’s home town that killed at least 14 people. An improvised explosive device tore through the bustling market in the heart of Davao city and close to one of its top hotels just before 11:00pm (1500 GMT) ...

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Putin calls to lower Korea peninsula tensions

  Vladivostok / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday urged both sides on the Korean peninsula to calm tensions after meeting South Korean leader Park Geun-hye. “Obviously we need to avoid any provocations or enflaming the situation,” Putin said at a statement to the press in the far eastern city of Vladivostok. “It is necessary to lower the level of ...

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Uzbekistan buries late strongman President Islam Karimov

  Samarkand / AFP Uzbekistan laid strongman President Islam Karimov to rest on Saturday amid tight security, after his death triggered the deepest period of uncertainty in the country’s post-Soviet history with no clear successor in view. Karimov, 78, was pronounced dead late Friday after suffering a stroke last weekend and falling into a coma, authorities said, following days of speculation ...

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Rice follows Kissinger’s playbook in China

  Susan Rice is the latest national security adviser to inherit the framework of Sino-American relations that was created in 1972 by Henry Kissinger: The Chinese ever since have wanted to deal directly and discreetly with the White House as they pursue a relationship that’s somewhere between cooperation and confrontation. Rice will be channeling Kissinger when she travels with President ...

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Escaping the dreaded national middle-income trap

  In the age of colonialism, there were mainly two kinds of countries: empires that controlled their economic destinies, and colonies, which were denied the chance to industrialize. After World War II and the end of colonialism, a different divide emerged — many countries were trapped behind the Iron Curtain, held back by inefficient communist systems. Meanwhile, the capitalist countries ...

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Job market offers the Fed no solace

  The inconclusive August jobs report might not provide the Federal Reserve with the impetus it needs to take interest rates higher in the near future. That’s particularly true since by some important measures, the economy still isn’t quite back to where it was even at the beginning of earlier tightening cycles. The employment report portrays an economy still growing ...

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