Just Economic Info

(Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to people familiar with a sweeping investigation into the rate-rigging scandal.Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., have recently contacted lawyers representing...

LONDON (Reuters) - Michael Rake, deputy chairman of Barclays Plc (BARC.L), has ruled himself out of contention to be its new chairman, striking a blow to the UK bank as it hunts for new leadership to steer it through its interest rate-rigging scandal.Rake, who was considered favorite for the job, is not interested in the role, three people...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two companies involved on the ground level of an expensive Pentagon effort to embrace biofuels have used familiar strategies in building their profiles in Washington, using hefty campaign contributions and aggressive lobbying to secure support.One company, Solazyme Inc, a subcontractor on a $12 million alternative fuels...

LONDON - News Corp's Rupert Murdoch has stepped down from a string of boards overseeing the Sun, Times and Sunday Times newspapers in Britain, the company said in an internal memo on Saturday.The company described the news as a "corporate housecleaning exercise" linked to the announcement in June that News Corp would split into two separate...

Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280 billion in lost income tax revenues, according to research published on Sunday.The study estimating the extent of global private financial wealth held in offshore accounts - excluding non-financial assets...

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will provide 1.44 billion euros ($1.75 billion) in loans to struggling Greek firms, providing a stimulus to the debt-laden country's ailing economy, Greece's finance ministry said on Saturday.With Greek banks dependent on ECB cash to survive and reluctant to finance any but the biggest companies, Athens...

The massacre at the Century 16 Movie Theaters in Aurora, Colo., early this morning has business owners and patrons asking what more can be done to improve security at public gathering places.“I don’t know if you could ever really avoid this,” said Geoffrey Kohl, conference director for secured cities, a national conference on urban cities....

Competition is heating up among telecommunication operators in Indonesia, as each firm eyes higher profits and new customers by launching ambitious Ramadhan and Idul Fitri holiday packages. However, with an already saturated market, the competition might just become unhealthy, an expert said.This year, celebrating Ramadhan and Idul Fitri,...

A gunman opened fire early Friday at a movie theater in a Denver suburb, killing 12 people and leaving at least 50 others injured, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said.The shooting occurred during a showing of the latest Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises," police said.The violence erupted about 12:30 a.m. MDT as the gunman stood at the front...

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told members of his Cabinet on Thursday not to ignore any form of budget misuse in their respective institutions amid the growing number of corruption cases involving state officials and politicians.“If you are aware that your subordinates have misappropriated or misused the state budget, in connivance with...

The government will crack down — again — on pornographic websites to support the nation’s Muslims when Ramadhan starts on Friday, a minister has said.“As this is the Ramadhan fasting month, we need to strengthen our efforts,” Communications andInformation Technology Minister Tifatul Sembiring told reporters at a press conference at the ministry...

The small, German town of Reutlingen boasts the narrowest street in the world, with a width of just 31 centimeters, and tourists come from far and wide to scrape through it. But the record is at risk because a side wall is bulging out into the passageway. Soon, it may cease to be a street. Locals are concerned.New York has Broadway. Paris,...

A shooting at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., early today has left at least 12 people dead and at least 50 people injured, authorities confirmed.Police now have now apprehended a 24-year-old male and recovered a gun after the shooting at approximately 12:30 a.m. at the Century 16 Movie Theaters...

The U.N. agencies for labor and environment say nations can achieve a net gain of 15 million to 60 million jobs over the next two decades by taking better care of the planet.A study released Thursday by the U.N.'s International Labor Organization and Environment Program says some jobs would inevitably be lost by switching to a "greener" economy,...

Representatives from four ASEAN nations - Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Indonesia - vowed that rules and regulations are being improved to embrace an investment flow in light of the activation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.At the Krungthep Turakij seminar on "AEC Plus: Your Business sto the New Frontier" yesterday, the representatives...

Apple released its newest iPad in China on Friday after settling a lawsuit over ownership of its name and requiring buyers to place orders in advance to control crowds.Watched by security guards, a few dozen shoppers waited outside stores in Beijing and Shanghai, which opened on time at 8 a.m. That was in contrast to the chaotic scene outside...

Asian stock markets wavered Friday as weak U.S. data kept sentiment in check despite continued hopes for new stimulus measures in major economies.Investors have been anticipating further moves by China to prop up slowing economic growth and also have continued to believe the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce additional pro-growth measures...

With a cheeky smile and playful nature, little Liang Xiaoxiao acts just like any other child.As she plays with other toddlers and kicks around a football, she doesn't have a care in the world.However, the three-year-old's size compared to the other children she plays with clearly shows that all is not well.It is believed the youngster is...

Her teeth are falling out and she’s had collagen injections for her wrinkles – but Zara Hartshorn is no middle-aged woman trying to recapture her youth.In fact, she’s only 15 with a rare and incurable disease that makes her look decades older than her school pals.The genetic defect affects fewer than 30 people in Britain – but heartbreakingly...

China's economic woes that have brought growth to a three-year low will continue for some time, but the slower expansion remains within expectations, Premier Wen Jiabao said Sunday.Speaking during a tour of the southwestern city of Chengdu, Wen said Chinese need to recognize the seriousness and complexity of the challenges the country faces....

A total of 173 sheep were killed almost instantaneously on Tuesday when lightning struck a mountainous area in the Hoboksar Mongolian autonomous county in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.An 18-year-old Mongolian herder recalled the incident as "a nightmare"."It started raining heavily at midnight and it hailed at around 1 pm. I was very...

Heilongjiang residents said they saw an unidentified flying object on Friday, the second time in a week such observations have been reported in the northeastern province.Zhang Wei and Dai Guobin, workers at a sand processing plant in Zhangjiadian village in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, said they witnessed a black flying object, the shape...

A Russian Soyuz craft launched into the morning skies over Kazakhstan on Sunday, carrying three astronauts on their way to the International Space Station, where they will quickly start preparing for a frenzy of incoming traffic.NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Russian cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko and Japan's Akihito Hoshide are set to travel...

Following a round of job cuts on the team running its social networking site Koprol, Yahoo announced that it would stop the operation of the locally made geo-location site it acquired in 2010.“Yahoo has decided to discontinue Koprol effective on Aug. 28,” the company said in a statement posted in the official website, koprolblog.com.The company...

Mick Jagger may rethink the words he sang more than 45 years ago — "What a drag it is getting old."Thursday marks 50 years since Jagger played his first gig with a band called the Rolling Stones, and the group is marking its half-century with no letup in its productivity or rock 'n ' roll style. Jagger himself is still the cool, rich frontman...