Iran is in talks with Asian banks on a 1 billion euro ($1.40 billion) bond to finance the development of its largest gas field, as part of its pursuit of billions of energy sector funding, a senior Iranian oil official said on Monday. "We are discussing with at least two Asian banks on the lead
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The Cypriot economy is headed for a ''sharp slowdown'' in 2009 – 2010 in an ''inevitable deterioration,'' which would boost fiscal deficit to 3.9%, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday. In a concluding report after a visit to Cyprus, the IMF says that ''after some years of credit-financed overheating, the economy is headed for
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Oil rose above $70 a barrel on Monday after Nigeria's main militant group said it attacked a Royal Dutch Shell oil platform, outweighing a fairly bearish report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said its fighters struck the Shell Forcados platform in the Delta state
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Royal Bank of Scotland does not expect any major changes to the terms of its participation in Britain's asset protection scheme (APS) and should cement the deal over the summer, its chief executive said. "It will happen over the summer," RBS CEO Stephen Hester told reporters after speaking at a conference. Asked if there were
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Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff left his jail cell and was taken under guard to court on Monday to hear his punishment for running Wall Street's biggest and most brazen investment fraud. A U.S. judge is expected to sentence Madoff, 71, to an effective life term in prison during a court hearing in which some of
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U.S. gross domestic product growth is likely to resume in the second half of this year but the U.S. labor market should lag any such improvement, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said on Monday. "GDP is expected to start being positive in the second half of this year, the unemployment rate
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U.S. stocks opened slightly higher on Monday as signs of life in the global economy kept U.S. investors optimistic over the prospects of a recovery, and rising oil prices boosted energy shares. The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) gained 24.79 points, or 0.29 percent, to 8,463.18. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) rose 2.03
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Advertising on mobile phones should really take off within two to three years, driven by new applications on smartphones and the growing popularity of social networks such as Facebook. Executives, who attended last week's Cannes Lions 2009 ad festival, told Reuters that emerging economies were also promising though the lack of a global mobile phone
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Monthly earnings in Cyprus jumped by 7% compared with the same period of the previous year on the first quarter of 2009, as high inflation boosted index-linked wages. According to the preliminary estimates of the Statistical Service, the average monthly earnings of employees during the first quarter of 2009 amounted to EUR, 1,818, with males
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U.S. stock futures were flat to higher on Monday as investors looked to new data later in the holiday-shortened week for clues over the direction of the recession-hit economy. U.S. stocks have run up as much as 40 percent since early March but have drifted recently as investors looked for signs to justify earlier optimism
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