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| Europe shares, periphery bonds rise before ECB meeting Thursday, Jul 04, 2013 12:48 AM PDT  By Marc Jones LONDON (Reuters) - European bond and stock markets were firmer on Thursday as investors put concerns about Portugal's political turmoil to one side ahead of the ECB and Bank of England's monthly meetings later in the day and Friday's key U.S. jobs report. Portuguese bond yields fell below 7.3 percent, while Italian and Spanish bond markets were quiet following Wednesday's sharp selloff as the focus fell squarely on Frankfurt, where the European Central Bank meets. ... Full Story | Top |
| Housebuilders' profit jumps shore confidence in market recovery Thursday, Jul 04, 2013 12:23 AM PDT  LONDON (Reuters) - Housebuilders Taylor Wimpey, Galliford Try and Redrow said they would meet or beat full-year expectations, shoring up confidence that Britain's housing market is firmly recovering. Taylor Wimpey said on Thursday it is likely to meet its full year expectations after improved buyer sentiment helped it to trade at the upper end of forecasts in the first half. It also predicted a rise in its UK operating profit margin to over 13 percent from 11.2 percent in the same period last year. ... Full Story | Top |
| South Africa's NUM says to give De Beers strike notice Thursday, Jul 04, 2013 12:20 AM PDT JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers is giving diamond producer De Beers, a unit of Anglo American, a 48-hour strike notice after mediation failed to resolve a wage dispute, NUM General Secretary Frans Baleni told Reuters on Wednesday. Baleni did not say exactly when NUM would issue the strike notice and De Beers said in a statement it could also lock out union members. ... Full Story | Top |
| House prices rise 0.6 percent month-on-month in June - Halifax Thursday, Jul 04, 2013 12:18 AM PDT  LONDON (Reuters) - House prices rose 0.6 percent in June from May and posted their sharpest annual increase in nearly three years in the second quarter, mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday. Prices were 3.7 percent higher in the April-June period than a year ago. Both readings beat analysts' forecasts for a 0.4 percent monthly rise and a 3.6 percent yearly increase. "Improved confidence in both the housing market and the economy, combined with a shortage of properties available for sale, appear to be pushing up house prices," said Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist. ... Full Story | Top |
| South Africa bonds, rand set for more weakness as risk appetite wanes Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:58 PM PDT  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's government bonds retreated further on Thursday while the rand drifted near the previous session's four-day lows against the dollar, with pressure on riskier assets likely to persist ahead of key U.S. jobs data due out on Friday. The yield on the bond due in 2026, the market benchmark, edged up one basis point to 7.955 percent, as did the shorter-dated 2015 paper to 6.135 percent. The rand recovered slightly after falling as much as 1 percent overnight. The local currency traded at 10.06 per dollar by 0628 GMT, up 0.1 percent from Wednesday's close at 10. ... Full Story | Top |
| Insight: Nigeria seeks farming revival to break oil curse Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:38 PM PDT  By Joe Brock SAULAWA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Down a winding dirt track in this sleepy village in northern Nigeria lies a corn farm which looks much like the dozens that surround it. The difference is, this one is turning a profit. "I can barely lift my 8-year-old. He's the fattest in the village," said Ibrahim Mustapha, 50, drawing laughter from his fellow farmers as he pretends to lift up his chubby son. ... Full Story | Top |
| StanChart to launch Islamic banking in Kenya, Indonesia Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:34 PM PDT  NAIROBI (Reuters) - Standard Chartered Plc will start offering Islamic banking in Kenya as a springboard into the rest of Africa and it may expand services in Indonesia, its global head of Islamic consumer banking said on Wednesday. Shariah-compliant banking makes up two percent of Kenya's banking industry, split between two Islamic lenders and conventional banks with Shariah-compliant products, like Barclays Kenya. "We are looking at Africa as the next frontier for the Islamic banking sector," Wasim Saifi told reporters in the Kenyan capital, where he attended an Islamic finance conference. ... Full Story | Top |
| Kenya offers 15-year Treasury bond for 15 bln shillings in July Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:23 PM PDT NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya will auction a reopened 15-year Treasury bond worth up to 15 billion shillings in July, the Central Bank said on Thursday. The 15-year bond will carry a coupon rate of 11.25 percent and will be auctioned on July 24. The last sale of a 15-year bond in April had a weighted average yield of 13.661 percent. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan suspends radio station for criticising government Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:16 PM PDT By Andrew Green JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan suspended a Catholic radio station after it investigated the suspicious death of a prisoner, reporters and human rights activists said on Wednesday, the latest crackdown on media in the young republic. Journalists in South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan in 2011, often complain of harassment and arbitrary detention by the security forces, a loose conglomeration of former militias from decades of civil war with Khartoum. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nigeria to sign off on $3 billion in Chinese loans Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 11:13 PM PDT  By Joe Brock and Felix Onuah ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan will travel to China next week to sign off on $3 billion in Chinese loans to build infrastructure in Africa's most populous country, the finance minister said on Wednesday. The agreed loans will come from the Chinese government and will be based on interest rates of less than 3 percent over a 15-20 year period, Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. ... Full Story | Top |
| China probes British drugmaker GSK: report Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 10:45 PM PDT  SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's top economic planning agency has opened an investigation into pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline Plc's operations in China, an official newspaper reported on Thursday, as foreign firms come under pressure from Beijing for possible price-fixing. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has begun a survey on production costs at 60 firms, including Britain's GlaxoSmithKline and 10 China-listed firms, the official Securities Daily said. ... Full Story | Top |
| China to grow 7.6 percent in second half; risks up: paper Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 09:22 PM PDT  SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's economy is expected to grow 7.6 percent in the second half of 2013, but risks of bad local government loans, slowing growth of central government revenue, diminished export competitiveness and industrial capacity are growing, the official China Securities Journal reported on Thursday. Economists have been cutting their forecasts for the world's second-largest economy following a string of weak data recently, with some predicting the government will not be able to meet it full-year target of 7.5 percent. China's economy expanded 7. ... Full Story | Top |
| Hit spy comedy tackles the tragedy of divided Korea Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 07:48 PM PDT By Michelle Kim and Daum Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - A trio of elite, but bumbling, North Korean spies has won the hearts of southern compatriots in a blockbuster South Korean film that views the tragedy of the divided peninsula through the unusual prism of comedy. The record-breaking success of "Secretly Greatly" - which scored a million viewers in just 36 hours after its release early last month, a first for a domestic film, and will debut in the United States this month - testifies to the fascination the North holds even 60 years after the end of the Korean War. ... Full Story | Top |
| Douglas Engelbart, inventor of computer mouse, dies at 88 Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 07:28 PM PDT By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Douglas Engelbart, a technologist who conceived of the computer mouse and laid out a vision of an Internet decades before others brought those ideas to the mass market, died on Tuesday night. He was 88. His eldest daughter, Gerda, said by telephone that her father died of kidney failure. Engelbart arrived at his crowning moment relatively early in his career, on a winter afternoon in 1968, when he delivered an hour-long presentation containing so many far-reaching ideas that it would be referred to decades later as the "mother of all demos. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. judges OK JPMorgan $546 million settlement with MF Global trustee, customers Wednesday, Jul 03, 2013 05:42 PM PDT  By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) - Customers of MF Global's failed broker-dealer unit and the trustee overseeing its liquidation won court approval on Wednesday for a $546 million settlement with JPMorgan Chase & Co . The settlement, announced in March, resolved claims levied by James Giddens, the trustee winding down MF's broker-dealer unit MF Global Inc, and by the broker's former customers, who are pursuing a federal class action over MF Global's collapse in 2011. ... Full Story | Top |
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