Queen Elizabeth's racehorse Estimate, the 2013 Ascot Gold Cup winner, has tested positive for the banned substance morphine, Buckingham Palace said today. Estimate was one of five horses under various trainers who were found by the British Horseracing Authority to be affected.
Updated 5 Years ago

After a decades-long deficit, Chile's sulfuric acid market is expected to turn a net surplus by 2020 on a future decrease in consumption due to lower production of copper in cathodes, said state copper commissionCochilco. Used in hydrometallurgy processes, sulfuric acid is one of the main supplies of the mining industry.
Updated 5 Years ago

Syngenta, one of the the world's biggest agricultural chemicals groups, posted a fall in profit for the first half of the year, as bad weather in North America hit the crop-protection market. The Swiss company, which has more than 28,000 employees in 90 countries, said net profit hit $1.39 billion in the first six months of the year, a fall of 1 percent from the same period last year.
Updated 5 Years ago

Tech giant Apple posted earnings of $1.28 a share on revenue of $37.4 billion for the fiscal third quarter. Analysts had expected the company to report earnings of $1.23 a share on roughly $37.98 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters. The company's stock dropped slightly on the news.
Updated 5 Years ago

PKN Orlen SA, Poland’s biggest oil company, posted a record quarterly loss after writing down the value of its refiners in Lithuania and the Czech Republic. The company’s second-quarter net loss widened to 5.2 billion zloty ($1.7 billion) from 207 million zloty a year earlier, the Plock, Poland-based company said in a regulatory statement today. That compares with the average estimate of a 367.5 million-zloty profit in a Bloomberg survey of 10 analysts.
Updated 5 Years ago

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating the alleged use of chatrooms by forex traders in a conspiracy to rig exchange rates. An estimated $5.3 trillion in currencies changes hands daily. The SFO, an independent government department that prosecutes fraud and corruption, announced the case on Monday.
Updated 5 Years ago

Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed a row of oil and mineral deals with Venezuela. The Chinese leader is on a four-country tour of Latin America aimed to increasing influence in the region. The 38 economic agreements are related to the production and development of Venezuelan oil and agriculture, as well as social and cultural expansion, says the BBC. The deals provides a credit line of $4 billion in return for Venezuelan oil and oil products, as well as allocating $691 million to explore Venezuela's gold and copper reserves, and an agreement to develop the countries' third jointly-owned satellite.
Updated 5 Years ago

US and European airlines suspended flights to Israel's Ben Gurion airport after a rocket landed one mile (1.6km) away. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered three US carriers that fly to Israel - Delta, United and US Airways - to halt flights for 24 hours. Europe's aviation regulator is also urging airlines not to fly to Tel Aviv.
Updated 5 Years ago

The naira eased 0.21 per cent against the United States dollar yesterday after some importers took advantage of its recent appreciation against the greenback to lock in rates, dealer said. The local currency eased after last week's gains, closing at N162.25 to a dollar yesterday after closing at N161.90 a dollar last Friday. Dealers informed Reuters that some importers had set limit orders to buy hard currency and were in the market after recent gains. Italy's local unit of Eni sold $11.5 million, but that was not enough to lift the naira.
Updated 5 Years ago

A group, the Niger Delta Citizens and Budget Platform (NDCBP), has expressed concern that the external debt profile of Rivers State has hit $322 million with the approval of $280 million World Bank/African Development Bank (AfDB) by the state House of Assembly. It said it was worried over what it described as the constant recourse to borrowing and the rising external and domestic debt profile of the state. The NDCBP, a coalition of non-governmental organisations interested in transparency and accountability, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt yesterday, said it had previously advised the state government against predicating a significant percentage of its programmes and projects on funds expected to be derived through borrowing either as bonds, grants, domestic or external loans.
Updated 5 Years ago