United States

• Thursday, September 7th 2017 - 18:39 UTC

  Stanley Fischer is stepping down from the Federal Reserve next month

  

  The United States Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer will resign next month for personal reasons, leaving a fourth vacancy on the seven-member Fed governing board. Fischer is a widely-respected economist who taught at MIT, was head of the Bank of Israel for eight years and vice chairman at Citigroup.

• Monday, September 4th 2017 - 10:40 UTC

  US employment growth decreasing, but still strong; waiting for Harvey's aftermath

  

  The US economy added 156,000 jobs in August, less than the previous month and below expectations. Analysts had expected US non-farm payrolls to rise by between 175,000 and 185,000 last month. Data released by the US Department of Labor also showed that employment growth in June and July was lower than originally estimated.

• Friday, September 1st 2017 - 10:14 UTC

  Harvey killed at least 30 and losses in Texas could reach US$ 100bn; half a million claiming federal assistance

  

  The costs of the deadly storm in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico continued to mount on Thursday, with some analysts estimating losses that approach US$100bn. Harvey has killed more than 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Many firms in the region, a major transport hub that is a home to the oil and gas industry, don't know when they will resume normal operations.

• Wednesday, August 30th 2017 - 07:28 UTC

  Mexico tells “twitter” Trump it will not renegotiate NAFTA via social media

  

  Mexico will not renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement or any other aspect of its relationship with the United States via social media or the press, the Mexican government declared Sunday.

• Tuesday, August 29th 2017 - 07:56 UTC

  South Korean forces military exercises with live ammunition next to the DMZ

  

  South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered his country's military on Tuesday to display its capabilities that can overwhelm North Korea should the communist state decide to attack, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.

• Saturday, August 26th 2017 - 16:50 UTC

  Yellen defends 2008 financial regulations, but cuts her reappointment chances with Trump

  

  Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Friday emphatically defended the web of regulations the Fed helped enact after the 2008 financial crisis, saying it helped restore the banking system's health and disputing criticism that the rules have hurt lending.

• Saturday, August 26th 2017 - 08:17 UTC

  Maduro reacts to Trump's sanctions: “we will sell our oil to other markets”

  

  Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has said that a preliminary analysis shows that new financial sanctions imposed by the United States will lead to a halt in oil exports to the US. President Trump's order bans trade in Venezuelan debt and blocks its state oil firm from selling bonds in the US.

• Thursday, August 24th 2017 - 11:41 UTC

  Populist strategist and Breitbart news criticize Trump's Afghanistan policy

  

  Minutes after President Donald Trump concluded his Afghanistan policy speech Monday night, the conservative site Breitbart news took an aggressive, critical approach to the address and Trump’s new policy. A banner headline blasted the president’s decision to extend the U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan as a “flip-flop” that “reverses course.”

• Thursday, August 24th 2017 - 07:25 UTC

  Hunger, one of the main causes of migration to U.S. from the “Dry Corridor”

  

  A new report presented at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) finds that migration from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to the United States is motivated in large part by poverty and hunger, aggravated by drought conditions associated with the El Niño phenomenon that began in 2014.

• Tuesday, August 22nd 2017 - 06:51 UTC

  J&J loses ovarian cancer case and has been ordered to pay US$ 417 million

  

  Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay US$417m to a woman who says she developed ovarian cancer after using products such as baby powder. The California jury's decision marks the largest award yet in a string of lawsuits that claim the firm did not adequately warn about cancer risks from talc-based products.