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/ 30 November 2009
A British newspaper group started charging for online content on Monday in a groundbreaking experiment.
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/ 3 September 2009
<i>Pittsburgh Post-Gazette</i> starts members’ club offering readers extra content, access to journalists and special events.
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/ 13 January 2009
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has slipped further behind the opposition Conservatives in an opinion poll on Tuesday.
Anil Ambani, the billionaire chairperson of India’s Reliance Communications, may link up with private equity groups in a bid to gain a powerful foothold in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest mobile phone operator MTN, the Financial Times said on Wednesday.
World number two brewer InBev was on the verge of merger talks with Anheuser Busch, a newspaper said on Tuesday, while consolidation fever drove up shares in global leader SABMiller. SABMiller shares shot up as much as 8,2% to a 19-week high of £13,24.
The former Times editor Robert Thomson was named managing editor of the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday night as Rupert Murdoch tightened control of the world’s top selling business newspaper. Thomson’s new role is the top editorial position at the Journal.
South African stocks continued to run in record territory at midday on Monday, buoyed by miners on firmer metal prices while an upbeat mood in overseas markets added to the bullish tone. The market touched 33 116,051 during the session, an all-time high.
Bharti Airtel, India’s leading mobile operator, may seek a merger or share swap with MTN Group to try to avoid a bidding war for the South African phone firm, analysts and media reports say. A successful deal would be India’s biggest foreign acquisition and create the world’s sixth-largest mobile operator.
South African stocks remained weak at midday on Tuesday with miners the worst causalities on easing metal prices, while falling overseas markets added to selling pressures. At 12.09pm, the JSE’s broader all-share index was down 0,86%, weighed by a 2,88% drop in platinum miners.
Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates on Wednesday played down the chances of a fresh takeover bid for Yahoo!, saying the United States software giant would focus on an independent strategy. "We put a lot of effort into talking to Yahoo! and the conclusion was reached that we should pursue our own independent path," he told reporters during a visit to Tokyo.
Yahoo! is willing to negotiate further with Microsoft, top executive Jerry Yang said in an interview on Tuesday, as he defended his handling of the aborted takeover bid. "We were totally willing to do a transaction, and they walked away," Yahoo! CEO Yang told the <i>Financial Times</i>, adding that he is open to renewing negotiations with Microsoft.
South African telecoms operator MTN Group said on Monday that it was in share price-sensitive talks with India’s Bharti Airtel. The group did not give much away amid speculation that Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest phone company, might launch a takeover offer for the local firm.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is taking large risks by investing more in private equity firms than it is allowed to and internal controls of such investments show ”serious weaknesses”, a media report said on Monday. The bank ”breached its capital allocation limit for private equity funds of 5%”, said the Financial Times, adding that it needed new risk management standards.
Crowds of Chinese students waving red flags and signs such as ”One World, One Dream, One China” scuffled with pro-Tibet protesters in the latest leg of the Olympic torch relay in Japan on Saturday. Commenting on the turmoil that has bedevilled the global relay, International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge urged the West to stop hectoring China over human rights.
South African mobile services operator MTN said on Friday that it had not received any "specific proposal" from any company regarding a takeover of the company. MTN was responding to a report that India’s Bharti Airtel is considering a bid for the company.
Zimbabwe state media predicted on Friday a crushing victory for President Robert Mugabe in weekend elections as his two main challengers made fresh allegations that the result may be rigged. Citing an eve of poll survey by university researchers, the Herald said Mugabe was set to win 57% of the votes.
Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev maintained pressure on Nato on Tuesday not to grant membership to Ukraine and Georgia, saying a week before an alliance summit that it would undermine European security. Ukraine and Georgia are lobbying Nato to grant them a Membership Action Plan, which is seen as the first step towards joining the alliance.
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are in talks about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities in a bid to solve the global credit crisis, the Financial Times said on Saturday. The newspaper, without citing sources, said the talks were at an early stage and part of a broader exchange on how to battle the turmoil in financial markets,
The government will not abandon its inflation-targeting policy of between 3% and 6%, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. ”Our adoption of inflation targeting in the late 1990s has enabled our economy to grow and to become more competitive,” he told the National Assembly. ”We cannot, at the first signs of stress, abandon our anchor,” Manuel said.
The African National Congress would campaign against the death penalty if a referendum was held on the issue, the party’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday. Mantashe’s remarks follow last week’s statement by party president Jacob Zuma that a referendum should be held if enough South Africans wanted it.
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/ 18 February 2008
Société Générale, at the centre of a huge trading scandal, began investigating trades executed by Jerome Kerviel months before his activities were exposed in January, a media report said on Monday. A senior executive of Fimat began investigating at the end of September deals executed by Fimat employee Moussa Bakir for Kerviel.
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/ 29 January 2008
Mining company Rio Tinto will review plans for a major aluminium investment in South Africa as the country continues to suffer from serious power shortages — the first sign that the current crisis could hit foreign investment, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
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/ 26 December 2007
When the newly created euro slumped to an all-time low in 2000, detractors lined up to predict a dark future for the young currency. The euro marks its ninth birthday on January 1, with detractors now warning of grave consequences on account of its strength.
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/ 7 December 2007
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Aides of Jacob Zuma have drawn up contingency plans to try to force his rival President Thabo Mbeki out of office early, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Friday. If Zuma was elected party leader at the African National Congress’s five-yearly conference, he would insist on being privy to big government decisions.
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/ 6 November 2007
The annual conference of the International Bar Association, the world’s biggest meeting of lawyers, was officially opened in Singapore recently by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. Yew, Singapore’s long-time ruler and a lawyer by training, was in no mind to soft-peddle his prescriptions for the island state’s success. ”If I had permitted freedom of expression,” he confidently announced, ”I would not be here tonight and neither would all of you.”
The global credit squeeze is a "serious crisis" that is not over yet and will have an impact on government budgets, International Monetary Fund (IMF) outgoing head Rodrigo Rato said in an interview published on Monday. IMF managing director Rato said: "Policymakers should not think that the problems will stay at the desk of the bankers."
Condemning Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is counterproductive and international powers should instead put their weight behind regional diplomatic efforts to unseat him, Tanzania’s president said on Friday. Jakaya Kikwete insisted the diplomatic approach favoured by African leaders ”will pay dividends”.
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/ 24 September 2007
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The deputy president of the African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, is to lunch with top international fund managers on Wednesday at Citigroup. This follows a report posted on the Financial Times that Citigroup was to host a dozen top international fund managers to a private lunch with Zuma.
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/ 18 September 2007
Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned on Tuesday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell was to raise the spectre of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on wiretapping.
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/ 15 September 2007
Worried customers were expected to keep withdrawing savings en masse on Saturday from embattled British bank Northern Rock after the Bank of England bailed out the lender. Customers formed lengthy queues outside branches on Friday after Britain’s fifth-biggest home-loan provider said it was facing severe difficulties raising cash to cover its liabilities.
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/ 6 September 2007
From the German chancellery to the Pentagon, government computer networks have been targeted by cyber spies that media reports say were directed by China’s military. The reported Pentagon attack was the ”most flagrant and brazen to date”, said Alex Neill, an expert on the Chinese military at London’s Royal United Services Institute.