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| U.S. House passes Iran sanctions bill to slash oil exports Thursday, Aug 01, 2013 12:17 AM PDT  By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives easily passed a bill on Wednesday to tighten sanctions on Iran, showing a strong message to Tehran over its disputed nuclear program days before President-elect Hassan Rouhani is sworn in. The vote also highlighted a growing divide between Congress and the Obama administration on Iran policy ahead of international talks on the nuclear program in coming months. Iran insists the nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes. ... Full Story | Top |
| AstraZeneca warns of higher costs as drug sales slide Thursday, Aug 01, 2013 12:14 AM PDT By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - British drugmaker AstraZeneca warned on Thursday of higher costs in 2013 as it invests through a slump in sales caused by a wave of patent expiries on key medicines. Analysts at Jefferies said the prediction that operating costs would now increase by a low-to-mid single digit percentage rate this year amounted to an effective cut in earnings guidance. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nigeria opposition coalition cleared to run in poll Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 11:39 PM PDT  ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's electoral commission has approved the merger of three main opposition parties into a bloc that could pose the most credible threat yet to the long-ruling party of President Goodluck Jonathan. Since nearly three decades of military dictatorship ended in 1999, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) has ruled more or less unchallenged, winning every presidential poll. ... Full Story | Top |
| Shell Q2 hit by Nigeria, weaker Australian dollar Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 11:29 PM PDT  LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell took a $700 million hit in second quarter profits on Thursday for continuing oil thefts and disruption to its Nigeria operations and for the tax impact of a weakening Australian dollar. The impact was included in Shell's adjusted second quarter net earnings on a current cost of supply basis, which came in at $4.6 billion, down from $5.7 billion a year ago and below analysts' expectations. Full Story | Top |
| South Sudan's Kiir to keep oil minister, change finance portfolio Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 11:27 PM PDT  By Andrew Green JUBA (Reuters) - South Sudan's oil minister Stephen Dhieu Dau will keep his post in the new government, while new appointments will be made to the key finance and defence portfolios, officials said on Wednesday. Last week, President Salva Kiir sacked the cabinet, Vice President Riek Machar and put his top Sudan negotiator, Pagan Amum, under investigation amid a power struggle. Dau told Reuters he had been appointed again. "We will try to continue with the same programmes that we laid in the last two years," he said, without elaborating. ... Full Story | Top |
| Gabon plans offshore oil round and transparency measures Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 11:18 PM PDT By Tom Miles and Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) - Gabon has told the World Trade Organization (WTO)that it will hold a licensing round for offshore oil blocks later this year, and that it will bring in new transparency requirements for its natural resources sector. In a confidential document circulated during a two-day trade policy review that ended on Wednesday, Gabon said it was adopting a new hydrocarbon code which would provide a basis for the new bid round. ... Full Story | Top |
| Insight: For nuns and analysts alike, bank commodity earnings are a mystery Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 10:04 PM PDT  By Cezary Podkul NEW YORK (Reuters) - When the Reverend Seamus Finn got an email from Goldman Sachs last week, the giant Wall Street bank was addressing an issue that was already on his mind. "We were getting ready to go back to them and talk to them about commodities anyway," said Finn, who heads up faith-consistent investing for the Missionary Oblates, a Washington DC-based Catholic group that owns Goldman shares. ... Full Story | Top |
| Suncor operating profit misses analyst expectations Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 07:46 PM PDT (Reuters) - Canada's Suncor Energy Inc posted a second-quarter profit that missed analyst expectations by a penny as earnings were affected by factors including the precautionary shutdown of third-party pipelines due to flooding in northern Alberta. Net income for the quarter was C$680 million ($661.5 million), or 45 Canadian cents per share, up from C$324 million, or 21 Canadian cents, in the second-quarter of 2012, Canada's largest oil and gas company said late on Wednesday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Texas jury rules ban on registering cloned horses violates law Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 06:06 PM PDT By Lisa Maria Garza DALLAS (Reuters) - A Texas jury has ruled that a horse association violated anti-monopoly laws by banning cloned animals from its prestigious registry, a decision that could encourage cloning and open the way for the animals to participate in lucrative horse races. Two Texas breeders, rancher Jason Abraham and veterinarian Gregg Veneklasen, sued the American Quarter Horse Association last year, asserting the group was operating a monopoly by excluding clones. ... Full Story | Top |
| Mothballed NASA telescope may get new life as asteroid hunter Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 05:45 PM PDT  By Irene Klotz (Reuters) - NASA is considering re-activating a mothballed space telescope to help find asteroids that could be on a collision course with Earth, according to a senior U.S. space agency official. Launched in December 2009, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, telescope spent about a year taking pictures for an all-sky map. With its infrared detectors, WISE was able to peer through thick layers of dust and see even relatively dim objects such as cool brown dwarf stars in great detail. ... Full Story | Top |
| S&P 500 ends flat as Fed sticks with easy money script Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 05:02 PM PDT  By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 finished a volatile session nearly flat on Wednesday as the Federal Reserve gave no hint that a reduction in the pace of its bond-buying program is imminent. The benchmark index pulled back just before the close after rising within 2 points of 1,700, a key resistance level that the S&P 500 has struggled to break. All three major stock indexes posted sharp gains for July, however, with the S&P 500's 5 percent increase its best monthly percentage gain since January. ... Full Story | Top |
| NASA pushing to keep 'space taxi' competition going Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 04:54 PM PDT By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA is pressing ahead with a program to fly its astronauts on commercial spaceships despite budget uncertainties that threaten to undermine a heated competition for its business. Since 2010, when the U.S. space agency begin partnering with private companies interested in developing space taxis, and May 2014, when the current phase of the so-called Commercial Crew initiative ends, NASA expects to have spent about $1.5 billion on the program. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. court ends Pemex bribery case against Siemens, SK Engineering Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 04:45 PM PDT  By Erin Geiger Smith (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge has dismissed a $500 million lawsuit brought by state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex against Siemens AG and a South Korean company that claimed the defendants bribed Pemex officials to secure oil refinery projects in Mexico. The case raised novel questions about who is a victim in corruption cases, but U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton of Manhattan did not address that issue, instead ruling Tuesday that Pemex could not bring the lawsuit because it had not shown its claims had enough contact with the United States. ... Full Story | Top |
| UK plays catch-up with $380 million spend on cancer-zapping beams Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 04:11 PM PDT LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's state-run health service is to spend 250 million pounds ($382 million) on two proton beam cancer therapy centers, offering patients the opportunity to receive the modern treatment in London or Manchester from 2018. Currently, the National Health Service (NHS) sends children and adults needing proton beam therapy (PBT) to the United States, where a dozen such centers are already operational. ... Full Story | Top |
| For Airgas founder, time to savor rival's hedge fund headache Wednesday, Jul 31, 2013 03:29 PM PDT By Ernest Scheyder NEW YORK (Reuters) - For Airgas Inc founder and Chairman Peter McCausland, there was a fair amount of schadenfreude in the air on Wednesday. McCausland, 62, fought a bitter and eventually successful battle for 13 months to keep Airgas independent in the face of a hostile bid from Air Products and Chemicals Inc . Now the hunter may become the hunted, with news that hedge fund manager William Ackman has taken a nearly 10 percent stake in Air Products. ... Full Story | Top |
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