Asian shares fell to a four-week low on Monday as a surprise surge in U.S. jobs growth heightened worries the Federal Reserve will start reducing stimulus as soon as next month — boosting the dollar against the euro, yen and emerging currencies. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.5%, hitting its lowest
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Greece's conservative-led coalition defeated, as expected, an opposition-sponsored motion to topple the government just after midnight on Sunday, but lost one deputy who was expelled after backing the opposition. A total 153 out of the 300 members of parliament rejected the opposition's censure motion. But Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's coalition expelled one Socialist lawmaker who
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Cyprus and Lebanon have agreed to start negotiations for a production-sharing agreement concerning their adjoining offshore hydrocarbon resources. Cyprus Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said he and his Lebanese counterpart Gebran Bassil “agreed to start the discussion and conclude it as soon as possible”. “We are opening a new era of a good cooperation between Lebanon
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Applications pending for redundancy payment in September soared by 60.36% year on year to 16,308, according to the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance, compared to 16,204 in August and 10,793 in September last year. A total of 775 applications were submitted in September, of which 541 were approved and 130 rejected. The Labour Ministry
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Twitter Inc shares jumped 73% in a frenzied trading debut that drove the seven-year-old company's market value to around $25 bln and evoked the heady days of the dot-com bubble. The strong performance on Thursday is encouraging for the venture capitalists who have backed other consumer Web startups, such as Square or Pinterest, though it
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Officials representing the Troika of international lenders that are monitoring cutbacks and reforms to reduce the runaway fiscal deficit in Cyprus, said that the programme is on track, but the biggest challenges ahead are the privatization of semi-government businesses. A statement by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF on the Second
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Greek telecoms giant OTE plans to cut 1,100 jobs at its domestic fixed-line business, in the former state monopoly's latest move to reduce legacy costs. The job losses, which represent about 13% of the fixed-line unit's total workforce, will be made through voluntary redundancies, Chief Executive Michael Tsamaz told analysts late on Thursday. Controlling shareholder
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Germany's trade surplus rose to a record high in September as exports climbed across the board, data showed on Friday, at a time when Europe's largest economy has come under fire for relying too heavily on foreign trade. The seasonally adjusted trade surplus widened to 18.8 bln euros from a revised 15.8 bln in August,
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Asian shares slumped to a four-week low on Friday after Wall Street suffered its biggest fall in more than two months, as investors looked to the U.S. payrolls data for clues on when the Federal Reserve will scale back its stimulus. The euro fell 0.2% after Standard and Poor's downgraded its credit rating on France's
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The European Central Bank cut interest rates to a new record low on Thursday, responding to a slump in inflation way below its target that has sparked fears the euro zone's economic recovery could stall. The news sent the euro falling 1% against the dollar to a seven-week low of $1.3356 while European shares and
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