International

• Thursday, September 4th 2014 - 05:20 UTC

  Argentina's dispute with holdouts “will not affect” Chinese investments, says Beijing

  

  The current legal dispute between Argentina and holdouts (“vulture funds”) suing the country over its defaulted bonds “will not affect” planned Chinese investments, since Argentina and China have a 'strategic association', the head of the National Commission of Development and Reform (CNDR) of China Xu Shaoshi, warned on Wednesday.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 23:00 UTC

  EC fines Philips, Samsung and Infineon for 'collusion' in price-chips for smart phones

  

  Philips, Samsung and Infineon have been fined 138m Euros by the European Commission (EC) for fixing prices of chips in used in smart-phones. The electronics giants “colluded” on pricing, contracts and capacity between 2003 and 2005, the EC said.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 22:17 UTC

  China expanding its investments in Argentina's South Atlantic fisheries

  

  China is interested in investing in Argentine port infrastructure and in setting up companies with access to the South Atlantic fisheries, according to reports from Shanghai where an Argentine top level delegation is currently negotiating in the framework of the China-Argentina cooperation agreement.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 22:05 UTC

  Soros signals Argentina’s shale is biggest place to be

  

  One of the world’s legendary investors is upping his bet on Argentina’s shale oil and gas industry in a show of confidence for shale production in South America’s largest unconventional prize —and a big boost for both super-majors and smaller players making big waves in the heart of new discovery areas.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 06:37 UTC

  Kicillof in China to confirm loans and a much needed swap dollars

  

  Credit strapped Argentina is wooing Beijing and with this purpose Economy Minister Axel Kicillof, Planning Minister Julio De Vido and YPF oil company CEO Miguel Galuccio are currently on an official trip to China, aimed at gathering funding for public works including two dams and one nuclear power plant.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 05:55 UTC

  Australia scraps contested mining tax; major win for Abbot's conservatives

  

  Australia on Tuesday agreed to scrap a contested resources profits tax after the government struck a surprise deal with crossbench senators, including mining tycoon Clive Palmer. The Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) was introduced by the previous Labor administration in 2012, with a levy on annual profits above 70 million dollars on iron ore and coal at a rate of 30%.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 05:50 UTC

  Barclays moves out of Spain; sells operations to CaixaBank for 800 million Euros

  

  Spain’s third-biggest lender, CaixaBank SA agreed to buy Barclays Plc banking operations in the country for about 800 million Euros (1.1 billion) in cash to expand its business as economic growth picks up. The sale includes consumer, wealth and investment management and corporate banking businesses, Barcelona-based CaixaBank said in a statement.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 05:36 UTC

  Spain's unemployment remains stubbornly high: 4.5 million in August

  

  A total of 8,070 people joined Spain's jobless queues in August, the first rise in unemployment after six months of improvement, official figures released on Tuesday show. The rise means there were 4,427,930 Spaniards registered as looking for work at the country's unemployment offices at the end of August, Spain's employment ministry figures show.

• Wednesday, September 3rd 2014 - 05:26 UTC

  UK and Germany main beneficiaries of Spain's brain drain

  

  Spain is among the European countries hardest hit by the so-called 'brain drain' effect with thousands of professionals including nurses and teachers taking steps to leave the country in recent years, new figures from the European Union show.

• Tuesday, September 2nd 2014 - 22:49 UTC

  Ebola outbreak in Congo is the indigenous 'Zaire strain' and not connected to West Africa

  

  Results from virus sequencing of samples from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been analyzed and they belong to the so called Zaire strain, in a lineage most closely related to a virus from the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC.