India’s opposition parties are gearing up for a national strike to protest the government’s move to hike fuel prices, putting pressure on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition before the next parliament’s session. Last Friday’s hikes in petrol, diesel and kerosene were seen as a bold reform with which to attack India’s fiscal deficit and that…
Afghanistan’s untapped mineral deposits could be worth up to $3 trillion, the country’s mines minister said on Friday, higher than a recent U.S. estimate. Officials from the U.S. Department of Defense said this month that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could top $1 trillion, a finding that could reshape the country’s economy and help U.S. efforts to…
Its celebrity residents include George Clooney, Donatella Versace, Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson, soccer coach Jose Mourinho…and could include you.The beauty of Italy’s Lake Como has long made it a magnet for rich and famous homebuyers. Nearly 200 years ago the Romantic poet Shelley said it “exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty” while in…
The question has puzzled leaders ranging from Henry Kissinger, said to have once asked who he should call to reach Europe, to Barack Obama. It has become all the more pertinent as the European Union tries to fill what is widely viewed as a leadership vacuum during the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis. Two leaders…
Britain’s top share index fell early on Thursday as renewed doubts about the sustainability of a global recovery dented commodity stocks, and banks weakened as risk appetite ebbed. By 0759 GMT, the FTSE 100 was 33.54 points, or 0.7 percent, lower at 5,145.04 after falling 1.3 percent on Wednesday to its lowest closing level in…
The Council of Europe on Tuesday denounced a “climate of fear” in Chechnya, a decade after the Kremlin regained control of the mainly Muslim region in southern Russia from separatist rebels. Kidnappings of opponents of Kremlin-appointed leader Razman Kadyrov regularly go unpunished, families of suspected fighters are targeted and the media and civil society are…
Weak May U.S. housing data undercut stocks and sent U.S. Treasuries up, while Europe grappled with a fresh tremor to its banking system after Fitch downgraded French bank BNP Paribas. The downgrade hit Europe’s banking stocks, leading to the end of a nine-day rally and pushed prices for gold higher on safe-haven flows. The…
Former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel used convincing lies to mask his risky, unauthorised bets, an ex-boss has told a Paris court. The 33-year-old Kerviel, whom SocGen blamed for a Ä4.9bn ($6.07bn) trading loss in 2008, made bets without bosses knowing, former supervisor Eric Cordelle added. “Jerome was always able to come up with reasons,…
The primary goal of diversification is to capitalise on your returns through investments in various areas – preventing a wipe out of your positions should the market turn against you. If you are looking into ways to diversify your portfolio, consider exploring the off-exchange retail foreign currency (forex) market. One reason, for starters, is that…
In recent years, a number of transfer pricing-related disputes between multinational corporations and tax authorities have made the headlines. Of particular note is the $3.4bn settlement between GlaxoSmithKline and the Internal Revenue Service in the United States and AstraZeneca’s approximately £500m settlement in the United Kingdom. These eye catching numbers are just the tip of…
