Saudi Arabia’s state finances could fall into the red next year and the country could start running down its huge foreign reserves if it does not rein in the growth of government spending, the International Monetary Fund said. The IMF has been urging the world’s top oil exporter to moderate its rapid spending growth for years – warnings which have been publicly dismissed by Saudi officials as alarmist.
Updated 5 Years ago

A series of recent incidents has put the focus on the role of fathersin children's lives. Hong Kong actress and singer Cecilia Cheunghas accused her former husband, Nicholas Tse, also a HongKong-based actor, of spending very little time with their two sons.And action star Jackie Chan, known for his social responsibility,was unaware that his son had been doing drugs for eight yearsuntil he was detained.
Updated 5 Years ago

China's manufacturing sector unexpectedly picked up some momentum in September even asfactory employment slumped to a five-and-a-half-year low, a survey showed on Tuesday. Signs of a weakening labor market reinforced expectations that China would further relaxfinancing conditions in coming weeks, but stop short of cutting interest rates or loosening thereserve requirement for all banks to support the economy.
Updated 5 Years ago

Microsoft Corp's new CEO extended an olive branch to Chinese regulators on Thursday inBeijing amid a high-profile antitrust investigation that is potentially hurting the sales of its flagshipproducts in the country. Satya Nadella, on his first trip to China after taking over as the chief executive of the globalsoftware major in February, said Microsoft has to trust the Chinese government and work withindustry regulators to expand its business in the world's top information technology market.
Updated 5 Years ago

Colombia's vice president Germán Vargas has urged congress to sharply increase the country's waterworks budget for 2015, radio RCN reported. The budget proposal for 2015 includes 100bn pesos (US$52.6mn) for water projects, covering only one third of government costs for next year.
Updated 5 Years ago

Mexico's Pemex has made the right decision by halting construction of its planned US$11.6bn Bicentenariorefinery in central Hidalgo state, and should instead look to purchase a refinery in the US, according to analysts cited by local media. Work on the refinery, which had been in the pipeline since 2008 and was to be built alongside an existing facility in Tula, had only reached a prior study stage, for which the oil firm had been authorized a 2.56bn-peso (US$192mn) budget.
Updated 5 Years ago

Peruvian mining projects, which total US$60bn in investment over the next decade, have at least 2,465MW in additional power generation needs, a top government official said. Mining expansion projects will require 783MW, state news agency Andina reported energy and mines minister Eleodoro Mayorga as saying.
Updated 5 Years ago

Japan's nationwide core consumer prices rose 3.1 percent in August from a year ago, data on Friday showed. The rise in the core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile food prices, was shy of analyst expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.2 percent increase. In July, core consumer prices rose 3.3 percent.
Updated 5 Years ago

Friday's markets are expected to be volatile, as investors weigh whether this week's selloff is the start of a bigger pullback or just end-of-quarter profit-taking. A negative for stocks Friday is the fact that key indices closed near the lows of the day Thursday, with all major S&P industry sectors lower, while bonds and the dollar rose. The S&P 500 fell through its 50-day MOVING AVERAGE—at 1,976—and fell to 1,966, a decline of 1.6 percent.
Updated 5 Years ago

Intel Corp. (INTC), struggling to break into the market for chips that run smartphones, will spend as much as 9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) on a stake in Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd., owner of two Chinese chip designers, to speed up its access to the world’s largest mobile market. Intel will take a maximum 20 percent in the owner of Spreadtrum Communications Inc. and RDA Microelectronics Inc., the Santa Clara, California-based company said in a statement. Spreadtrum will develop products jointly with Intel that will be marketed to its domestic phone-manufacturing customers from the second half of 2015. Tsinghua is a state-funded corporation.
Updated 5 Years ago