United States

• Wednesday, December 12th 2012 - 20:35 UTC

  “Soft” dollar until US unemployment rate falls below 6.5% says Fed

  

  The US Federal Reserve has said it plans to keep interest rates at close to zero at least until the US unemployment rate falls below 6.5%. The Fed previously had a date-driven target, rather than a data-driven one.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 19:38 UTC

  Standard Chartered will pay 327m dollars for violating US sanctions on Iran

  

  Standard Chartered will pay more than 300 million dollars to settle charges it violated US sanctions on Iran, Burma, Libya and Sudan. The UK-based bank has been fined 100m by the Federal Reserve and the Department of Justice seized assets worth 227m, the regulators said.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 02:17 UTC

  US unemployment down to Dec 2008 level; 12 million still out a job

  

  The US announced that the labour market advanced sharply last month and its jobless rate fell to 7.7%, the lowest level in nearly four years. Washington said that late October's devastating super-storm Sandy had little effect on hiring, as employers unexpectedly added 146.000 new jobs in November, which was substantially more than economists had predicted.

• Thursday, November 29th 2012 - 00:31 UTC

  Argentina saved from a ‘technical default’; court case continues February 27

  

  A US appeals court on Wednesday granted an emergency stay order that gives Argentina more time to argue against making a 1.33 billion dollars payment to investors who rejected two debt restructurings in the nation's 2002 sovereign debt default.

• Wednesday, November 28th 2012 - 18:55 UTC

  BP suspended from new contracts with US government

  

  British Petroleum has been temporarily suspended from new contracts with the US government, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. While it is unclear how long the ban will last, it follows BP's record fine earlier this month over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Thursday, November 22nd 2012 - 21:35 UTC

  North Dakota oil and gas production increasing 3% to 5% monthly

  

  Crude production from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota could rise by another 50-100% in the next three years, and not start to decline until 2020 or even 2025, according to official projections from the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division.

• Thursday, November 22nd 2012 - 14:50 UTC

  Argentina’s outbursts backfire: Judge Griesa orders payment to holdout bond investors

  

  Argentina suffered a stinging blow late Wednesday when New York federal judge Thomas Griesa, citing threats by the country's leaders to defy his rulings in a decade-old dispute over defaulted sovereign bonds, ordered immediate payment.

• Monday, November 19th 2012 - 11:37 UTC

  Gasoline rationing extended in New York until next Friday

  

  Gasoline rationing in New York City which was scheduled to end on Monday has been extended through Friday, even as the gas station lines that prompted it have all but disappeared.

• Saturday, November 17th 2012 - 23:02 UTC

  US reshpaing foreign policy based on ‘power of economics’ and jobs diplomacy’

  

  US foreign policy is being reoriented to promote American economic interests after Washington was tied down by two wars in the past decade, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday.

• Friday, November 16th 2012 - 00:42 UTC

  BP pleads guilty to Gulf of Mexico spill and will pay a record 4.5bn

  

  BP Plc agreed on Thursday to plead guilty to a raft of charges in the deadly Gulf of Mexico spill and pay a record 4.5 billion dollars including the biggest criminal fine in United States history. Three BP employees were also charged, two of them with manslaughter.