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| U.S. extends Iran oil sanctions waivers to China, India, Korea Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:58 AM PST  The U.S. State Department extended six-month Iran sanctions waivers on Friday to China, India, South Korea and other countries in exchange for their reducing purchases of Iranian crude oil. The State Department is required by U.S. sanctions law on Iran's disputed nuclear program to determine whether Iran's oil consumers have reduced their purchases. The decision on waivers comes even after the United States and five other global powers agreed in Geneva this month to ease some sanctions on frozen funds on Iran in exchange for Tehran's taking steps to curb its nuclear program. Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: U.S. sanctions make Cuba's bank account too toxic for banks Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:54 AM PST  By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - The decision by a New York bank to close Cuba's checking account in the United States has presented an unusual diplomatic quandary that provides a test for new-found pragmatism in relations between the two longtime foes. Cuba announced on Tuesday that it is ceasing almost all consular services in the United States after M&T Bank closed its account, sending shock waves through the booming Cuba-U.S. travel industry and threatening to undermine the Obama administration's goal of closer "people-to-people" ties. Cuba blamed its unusual bank-less status on the longstanding U.S. economic embargo against the communist island, as well as sanctions resulting from it being included on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Full Story | Top |
| Saab to restart 9-3 sedan production two years after bankruptcy Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:21 AM PST  (Reuters) - The new owners of Swedish car maker Saab, National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, will restart production of the 9-3 sedan on Monday at the Trollhattan factory in Sweden, a NEVS spokesman said on Friday. The 9-3 sedan will be powered by a turbocharged gasoline engine and built in "small and humble numbers" for China and Sweden, NEVS spokesman Mikael Ostlund said. The move comes almost two years after Saab, which had made cars since 1947, filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2011. Full Story | Top |
| Canada competition bureau approves Telus bid for Public Mobile Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:19 AM PST  OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's Competition Bureau said on Friday it would allow Canadian telecom company Telus Corp to buy all of struggling startup Public Mobile. Industry Minister James Moore had approved the sale last month, saying it would not hurt consumers. The Conservative government is eager to boost competition in the wireless sector. "The Bureau will continue to closely monitor the evolution of competition in Canada's wireless telecommunications industry and take action where appropriate," Commissioner of Competition John Pecman said in a statement. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nasdaq ends brief post-holiday session at 13-year high Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:12 AM PST  By Luke Swiderski NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500 dipped in thin holiday trading on Friday, but technology stocks helped lift the Nasdaq to a 13-year high. The Nasdaq got a boost from the technology sector, with Apple "It's almost as if people are rotating into the bigger blue-chip names, especially the technology big caps. We wouldn't be shocked at all to see the small and mid-cap names lag a little bit," said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist with Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati. Full Story | Top |
| Store evacuation, fights mar U.S. holiday shopping rush Friday, Nov 29, 2013 11:09 AM PST  A police officer was injured while breaking up a fight outside a California Walmart, a shopper was shot in the leg over a TV in Las Vegas and a Walmart north of New York City was evacuated as the post-Thanksgiving shopping rush sparked incidents of violence across the nation, according to police and media reports. In White Plains, just north of New York City, an outlet of Wal-Mart Stores Inc was evacuated on Friday, with employees and shoppers saying they had been warned of a possible bomb threat. Police in Romeoville, Illinois, shot a suspected shoplifter in the shoulder late Thursday night after the car he was driving dragged an officer through the parking lot of a Kohl's department store, Romeoville Police Chief Mark Turvey said in a video posted by the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Full Story | Top |
| New "Parsifal" is "powerful journey" for all: director Friday, Nov 29, 2013 10:41 AM PST Director Stephen Langridge knows MTV video clips tend to have mass appeal and Wagner operas do not, but he thinks anyone can be moved by his new production of "Parsifal", opening at London's Covent Garden on Saturday night. In the second act, New Zealand tenor Simon O'Neill as Wagner's "pure fool" of the title must resist the seductive lures of German soprano Angela Denoke's witch and temptress Kundry. "Anybody who comes to see 'Parsifal' is in for a powerful journey which will shake up all sorts of emotions and corners of their subconscious, almost without their knowing it," he told Reuters during a rehearsal for this last Wagner production by the Royal Opera in the composer's birthday bicentenary year. "It's the absolute antithesis of MTV, where you are battered with fabulous imagery for three minutes - and which I kind of enjoy, actually," he said. Full Story | Top |
| Virtuous veterans hard to find in British banking Friday, Nov 29, 2013 10:25 AM PST  With three of Britain's four major banks expected to hire new chairmen - and they are all likely to be men - within the next two years, headhunters and industry insiders say there is an acute shortage of suitably qualified candidates. Perhaps only six to 12 credible figures could fill the posts likely to be on offer at Lloyds Lloyds is on the verge of appointing Norman Blackwell, chairman of its Scottish Widows insurance arm, as its new chairman, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. An ex management consultant with banking experience, political contacts and free of scandal, Blackwell fits the bill. Full Story | Top |
| Obama says 'nowhere to go but up' after HealthCare.gov debacle Friday, Nov 29, 2013 10:12 AM PST By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's popularity has taken a beating over the botched October 1 launch of Obamacare, but in a television interview set to air on Friday, Obama said he believes Americans eventually will appreciate his signature healthcare reform. Reflecting on his poll numbers in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Obama said: "I've gone up and down pretty much consistently throughout. "But the good thing about when you're down is that usually you got nowhere to go but up," Obama added, according to excerpts released by ABC. The interview was taped last week as the Obama administration scrambled to meet a self-imposed November 30 deadline to overhaul HealthCare.gov, the website used in 36 states to shop for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Full Story | Top |
| 'Zombie' comet ISON may be back from the dead Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:48 AM PST  By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A smaller, paler version of Comet ISON may have survived incineration in the sun's corona and may be brightening, scientists said on Friday. Since its discovery in September 2012, Comet ISON has been full of surprises. Conflicting pictures of the comet's future continued until Thursday when ISON apparently flew too close to the sun. Its long tail and nucleus seemingly vaporized in the solar furnace, dashing hopes of a naked-eye comet visible in Earth's skies in December. Full Story | Top |
| Goldman Sachs sued in Singapore penny stock saga Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:17 AM PST  By Rujun Shen SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A shareholder who suffered losses in a penny stock trading debacle in Singapore is suing Goldman Sachs, accusing the investment bank of arbitrarily selling her holdings and saying the sales contributed to a crash in their prices. Last month, Blumont Group Ltd, Asiasons Capital Ltd and LionGold Corp Ltd - three firms interlinked by cross shareholdings and common officers - lost a combined market value of about S$8 billion ($6.4 billion) in just three days of trading. Both the crash and huge run-ups in their share prices earlier in the year left many in the market mystified, prompting the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the stock exchange to launch an extensive review. The lawsuit was filed in the High Court in London on November 20 by Quah Su Ling, who held stocks in all three companies and is the chief executive of investment firm IPCO International Ltd, the second-largest shareholder in Blumont. Full Story | Top |
| Will U.S. Thanksgiving shopping binge become Black Friday hangover? Friday, Nov 29, 2013 09:14 AM PST  By Suzanne Barlyn and Phil Wahba and Marina Lopes and Dhanya Skariachan NEW YORK (Reuters) - An early start to this year's U.S. holiday Shopping season may not necessarily ring-up bigger holiday sales for retailers. Eager to entice cautious consumers, especially with six fewer shopping days this year than in 2012, many retailers offered sales on Thanksgiving, traditionally a day for family, friends and football games. Even Macy's flagship store in New York opened at 8 p.m., the first time ever on the American holiday. As a result, some U.S. shoppers may have hit malls and stores on Thanksgiving, rather than during the traditional "Black Friday" blitz. Full Story | Top |
| China scrambles jets to new defense zone, eyes U.S., Japan flights Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:58 AM PST By Ben Blanchard and Roberta Rampton BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China scrambled jets on Friday in response to two U.S. spy planes and 10 Japanese aircraft, including F-15 fighters, entering its new air defense zone over the East China Sea, state news agency Xinhua said, raising the stakes in a standoff with the United States, Japan and South Korea. Japan and South Korea flew military aircraft through the zone, which includes the skies over islands at the heart of a territorial dispute between Japan and China, the two countries said on Thursday, while Washington sent two unarmed B-52 bombers into the airspace earlier this week in a sign of support for its ally Japan. Full Story | Top |
| Government takes aim at green levies, denies seeking energy price freeze Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:40 AM PST  By William James and Sarah Young LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Friday to cut energy bills by reducing green levies but denied a BBC report that he had asked the country's biggest gas and energy companies to hold prices steady until the 2015 election. In an unusually sharp reprimand for the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation, a spokesman for Cameron's office said the report which cited unidentified industry sources was utterly misleading. Details of a review of green levies, which include obligatory insulation for poor families and help with their bills, will be unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne in his December 5 Autumn Statement, a government spokesman said. "I want to help households and families by getting sustainably low energy prices," Cameron told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Lithuania on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Governments seek to raise the EU cap on food-based biofuels Friday, Nov 29, 2013 08:25 AM PST By Charlie Dunmore BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union governments are trying to raise a planned limit on the use of transport fuels made from food crops, despite warnings that the fuels can harm the environment and push up food prices. Last year in response to such warnings, the European Commission, the EU executive, proposed capping the bloc's use of crop-based biofuels at 5 percent of total transport fuel demand. That was a U-turn from three years before, when the European Union had set a legally binding target to source 10 percent of its transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020, mostly crop-based biofuels. On Friday, EU ambassadors meeting in Brussels drew up a draft compromise that would raise the proposed cap to 7 percent. Full Story | Top |
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