There is supposed to be a research center in Angola, funded by foreign oil companies in exchange for access to some of the country’s estimated 9.1 billion barrels of oil reserves. That center is supposed to be training Angolans in the skills they need to work in and profit from extracting the country’s vast natural resources.
Argentina wants an international court to decide whether its sovereignty was violated by US judge Thomas Griesa, whose 2012 ruling pushed Argentina to default on its national debt last week.
And it’s not (just) that the bombers took off from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush, named after the first American president to go to war in Iraq. No, we’re talking about the targets:
Your big mouth get can you in trouble, even if you think you’re talking in private: Just ask the long line of bankers whose chat transcripts have been used by law enforcement to ding their employers. For instance, this message from an RBS trader—“its just amazing how libor fixing can make you that much money”—was at the heart of an investigation that left the bank with a $612 million fine. Now, benchmark-fixing investigations have grown up around nearly every one that exists.
It’s rare to see a business competing in a global market go out of its way to advertise a competitor’s products—but that’s exactly what Major League Soccer, the US domestic league, has been doing all summer, capped with last night’s upset win by a group of MLS all-stars playing an exhibition game against German Bundesliga powerhouse Bayern Munich.
Among CEOs of US companies, it’s all the rage to buy a foreign competitor and shift headquarters overseas, a move that allows firms to take advantage of lower taxes abroad and shift profits out of the US.
To beat out six other competitors, Texas is putting up $2.3 million in cash and invest $13 million in infrastructure developments to bring a SpaceX launch facility to Brownsville. In return, SpaceX will invest $85 million in the launch facilities and, according to Texas’ governor, Rick Perry, create 300 jobs loading and serving rockets and managing their lift-off.
Carolyn Campbell, founding partner of a $2 billion private equity fund focused on Africa, is bullish about the continent and quick to note that 14 African countries have better ratings on public integrity (pdf) than India, while 35 are seen as less corrupt than Russia, generating favorable comparisons with two other fast-growing economies seen as more welcoming to foreign investors than Africa.
You can’t have a debt default without a morality tale, and Argentina’s is no exception. But who’s the villain?
With one day left to pay its creditors, Argentina appears to be heading for a voluntary default.
The EU and the US announced new sanctions against Russia today, with Europe banning a laundry list of activities and exports—no more pulsed electron accelerators or live Marburg viruses allowed—which the US matched by expanding its sanctions across several sectors of industry.
The biggest corporate offshoots of Time Magazine’s long march through history have at least two things in common: Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are at the center of the most anticipated mergers of the year, and their CEOs stand to make a fortune if they can get the deals done.
After more than a decade of weapons supplies, cumulatively worth some $626 million, to Afghan security forces, US inspectors have discovered a problem: the Afghan National Army and Police have more weapons — up to 100,000 more — than they need. What’s worse? No one is keeping proper track of the surplus weapons, most of which are Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles.
Family planning counts for a lot when it comes to development in poor countries. It lowers mortality among women and infants, improves educational outcomes, and slows population growth. It also makes it easier for women to enter the workforce, which acts as an economic booster shot even in wealthy nations such as Japan.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and spacecraft company, has scored a partial victory in its bid to get a slice of government contracting. Court filings show that a federal judge will review a multi-billion-dollar contract that was awarded without competition last year to the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin with a monopoly over US national-security space launches.
Hydraulic fracturing—the oil drilling technique that unlocks oil and gas tightly trapped in rock formations—has been a recent bonanza for the US, creating economic growth, cheap fossil fuels and even changing the way the earth looks from space. But is it going to last?
Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte, whose citizens make up the bulk of the victims of the MH-17 disaster, didn’t mince words this week when telling Russian president Vladimir Putin about his responsibility to improve the situation there: “I told him that the window of opportunity to show the world that he intends to help is closing rapidly. He must take responsibility vis-à-vis the rebels and show the Netherlands and the world that he is doing what is expected of him.”
The Israeli reason for the controversial military invasion of Gaza is, at least officially, about one critical piece of infrastructure: Tunnels used to smuggle people, goods and weapons in and out of the densely populated 360 square kilometers (139 square miles) of land.
International air travel makes the world a smaller and, it would often seem, a friendlier place.
International air travel makes the world a smaller and, it would often seem, a friendlier place.
US prosecutors have unveiled allegations that FedEx, despite warnings from the government, acted as the distribution network for illegal online pharmacies that sold restricted drugs, from pain-killers to anti-anxiety medicines, to be used recreationally.
The Israeli Defense Forces have begun sending ground troops into the Gaza strip, in an effort destroy rockets and tunnels used by Palestinian fighters to attack Israel. They’ll be staying for a while.
With Microsoft eliminating 14% of its workforce, or some 18,000 jobs, you have to expect that its global footprint will change. And according to executive vice president Stephen Elop’s memo to employees, it will.
A Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777, MH-17, has been shot down in eastern Ukraine en route to Kuala Lumpur with 295 people on board. The victims included 154 Dutch passengers, 27 Australians, 23 Malaysians, 11 Indonesians, six UK citizens, four Germans, four Belgians, and three passengers from the Philippines, along with a 15-person Malaysian crew. Some 47 passengers remain unidentified, with some reports suggesting that 23 US citizens are among that number.
