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FILE PHOTO – A person walks past a sale sign on Oxford Street in London, Britain, December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville
April 25, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – British retail sales rose for the first time in five months in April, a leading employers’ group said on Thursday, adding to signs that consumers have recovered their appetite for spending even as the country’s Brexit impasse drags on.
The Confederation of British Industry said the later timing of Easter this year probably helped to push its monthly sales balance up to +13, meaning more retailers reported rising sales than falling sales.
The index suffered its biggest fall in 17 months in March when it sank to -18.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a reading of zero for April.
“It’s encouraging to see retailers with more of a spring in their step than in recent months,” Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI’s chief economist, said.
“The recent pick up in real wages is a welcome support to the sector, making the pound in people’s pockets stretch that bit further.”
But falling sales in clothing and department stores showed how tough the underlying conditions were for retailers, Newton-Smith said.
Official data published last week showed retail sales volumes surged by the most in nearly two-and-a-half years in annual terms, leaping by 6.7 percent.
The CBI said retailers were more optimistic about sales in the month ahead than they had been in March.
(Reporting by William Schomberg, editing by David Milliken)
Source: OANN
Activists attend a rally to demand lawmakers vote for a law that grants special status to the Ukrainian language and introduces mandatory language requirements for public sector workers, in front of the parliament building in Kiev, Ukraine April 25, 2019. Banners reads (L-R) “Vote for the language law”, “Protect language, vote for the language law”, “Language is a weapon”, “Language is our security”. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
April 25, 2019
By Pavel Polityuk
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on Thursday that grants special status to the Ukrainian language and makes it mandatory for public sector workers, despite opposition from the country’s large Russian-speaking minority who feel it is discriminatory.
The move, which obliges all citizens to know the Ukrainian language and makes it a mandatory requirement for civil servants, soldiers, doctors, and teachers, was championed by outgoing President Petro Poroshenko who needs to sign it into law before it takes effect, something he is expected to do.
Language became a much more sensitive issue in Ukraine, where many people speak both Ukrainian and Russian fluently, after Russia annexed Crimea and backed a pro-Russian separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Poroshenko, who is due to step down soon after actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy trounced him at the ballot box on Sunday, put promotion of the Ukrainian language at the heart of his unsuccessful re-election campaign.
But Zelenskiy, who himself speaks Russian more frequently than Ukrainian, has said he wants to unite rather than divide the country and has said he has questions about the new law.
The new legislation requires TV and film distribution firms to ensure 90 percent of their content is in Ukrainian and for the proportion of Ukrainian-language printed media and books to be at least 50 percent.
Computer software must also have a Ukrainian-language interface although the law also allows the use of English or any other official language of the European Union.
Lawmakers cheered and rose to a standing ovation after the law was passed and sang the national anthem. Hundreds of people waving Ukrainian flags had gathered outside parliament to support the law.
“This is a historic moment, which Ukrainians have been waiting for centuries, because for centuries Ukrainians have tried to achieve the right to their own language,” one of the authors of the bill, Mykola Knyazhytsky, said before the vote.
The make-up of the parliament has not changed since Zelenskiy’s election win and remains dominated by a coalition supportive of Poroshenko.
Poroshenko had originally thought the language law would be approved before the election and would help boost his support, particularly in western regions where the Ukrainian language is predominantly used.
Its approval is potentially awkward for incoming president Zelenskiy, a comedian with no political experience.
Zelenskiy’s stance on the new law is unclear. He said during the campaign he’d do everything to protect and develop the Ukrainian language, but also that he had questions about the new legislation.
In 2012, clashes between riot police and protesters erupted in Kiev after Ukraine’s parliament approved a law that made Russian an official language.
Ukraine also has Romanian, Polish and Hungarian minorities that speak these languages. Last year, its relations with neighboring Hungary soured after parliament passed a law that banned teaching in minority languages beyond primary school level.
A survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed that the Ukrainian language is used by 32.4 percent of Ukrainian families, while Russian is used by 15.8 percent. About a quarter of Ukrainians use both languages.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Andrew Osborn, Matthias Williams and Raissa Kasolowsky)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO – A man (R) cleans electronic boards showing Japan’s Nikkei average, the exchange rate between the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar and stock quotation outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, in this April 6, 2016 file photo. REUTERS/Issei Kato/Files
April 25, 2019
(Reuters) – Foreigners were net buyers of Japanese stocks for a third consecutive week in April 15-19, encouraged by China’s better-than-expected economic data and on hopes of progress in Japan-U.S. trade talks.
Overseas investors bought a net 796.28 billion yen ($7.12 billion) of Japanese stocks, including cash equities and futures that week, data from Japanese stock exchanges showed.
Foreigners bought a net 553.43 billion yen in cash markets and 242.85 billion yen in derivative markets, the data showed.
Japan’s Nikkei index gained over 1.5 percent in April 15-19, while the Topix index advanced 0.72 percent.
China’s economy grew 6.4 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, official data showed last week, defying expectations for a further slowdown in its growth pace. Industrial output in March expanded at the fastest pace since mid-2014.
On talks between Tokyo and Washington, Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said no deal had been reached on individual trade issues after two days of negotiations with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, but Motegi hoped for a good result “at an early stage”.
Foreign flows into Japanese stocks – https://tmsnrt.rs/2GFRGC4
On the other hand, Japanese investors sold 107.1 billion yen worth of overseas equities in April 15-19, which was the second consecutive weekly sales by residents, the Ministry of Finance data showed.
Japanese investments in stocks abroad – https://tmsnrt.rs/2GJ71SF
(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Source: OANN
Michael Savage believes that Islamist terrorists may have been behind the Notre Dame blaze, and he is being vocal about it. In response, Twitter has reportedly moved to shadow ban Savage to stop his opinion spreading.
Savage’s reasoning is that terrorists attempted to set the cathedral on fire as recently as 2016, in addition to the fact that hundreds of churches in France have been desecrated over the past year.
why do I say ‘TERRORISTS SET NOTRE DAME ABLAZE? in 2016 3 RADICAL ISLAMISTS WERE CAUGHT IN FRONT OF THE CATHEDRAL WITH GAS CANNISTERS IN THEIR CAR. ARRESTED TRIED AND SENTENCED JUST LAST WEEK https://t.co/B8Pxj9bkjP
— Michael Savage (@ASavageNation) April 15, 2019
how can the
investigation’ of possible arson or terror be ‘over’ when the ashes are still smoldering! LIES, COVER-UP. USE COMMON SENSE. THIS WAS TERRORISM— Michael Savage (@ASavageNation) April 16, 2019
Savage found that after he expressed that opinion, Twitter stopped a lot of other users from seeing his posts.
“It became apparent Sunday after being temporarily blocked last week following the burning of Notre Dame, that now he may join the rebels in the shadows,” wrote Amanda Metzger, who works for Savage on his website.
“Some followers who used to receive notifications of his tweets on their smartphones no longer received them,” she added.
Metzger also noted that Savage “suddenly found his Periscope live broadcast was limited in the number of viewers.” (Periscope is owned by Twitter).
Infowars’ Alex Jones is still permanently banned from Twitter. No explanation was ever given, other than the vague suggestion that Jones ‘violated’ T&C’s.
It appears Savage now finds himself in the Twitter sin bin along with Jones and many others.
“Who is in the shadows deciding who is heard and who is silenced? Someone in a dark room behind a bright screen in a foreign country with no First Amendment?” Metzger asked, adding “maybe it’s an American trying to create a safe space online.”
“I can’t think of anything less safe – anything more damaging – than limiting the exchange of ideas,” she continued. “We’re in a dangerous place when we’ve forgotten the phrase, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
“We are getting closer to the point where federal regulation of social media is inevitable. The airwaves are regulated. In this case, my plea is that there is some transparency in who is banned, blocked or deplatformed and why,” Metzger urged, adding “I would prefer no one find themselves silenced by another.”
“Maybe you don’t care who was deplatformed last year. You didn’t agree with them anyway and seeing their tweets and posts ruined your day,” Metzger concluded. “But if you don’t stand up for them now, they won’t have a voice to come to your defense when you are silenced.”
In related news, it appears that Twitter is planning to allow users to report tweets that they believe are an attempt to ‘mislead’ people at election time.
What could go wrong there?
In a blog post regarding the change, Twitter declared that “Any attempts to undermine the process of registering to vote or engaging in the electoral process is contrary to our company’s core values.”
The move appears to be an effort on behalf of Twitter to adhere to the EU ‘Code of Practice against disinformation’ which Facebook and Google have also signed up to.
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia, is seen on a window in the bank’s lobby in Jakarta, Indonesia September 22, 2016. REUTERS/Iqro Rinaldi/File Photo
April 25, 2019
By Maikel Jeffriando and Tabita Diela
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s central bank on Thursday kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for a fifth month to contain external pressures, though it is aiming for looser market liquidity and relaxed rules on trading in domestic non-deliverable forwards.
The 7-day reverse repurchase rate was held at 6.00 percent, where it has been since November, as predicted by all 23 analysts in a Reuters poll.
The decision is “in line with efforts to strengthen the external stability of Indonesia’s economy,” Bank Indonesia (BI) Governor Perry Warjiyo said.
BI has said the benchmark’s level is sufficient to help steer the current account deficit down to the targeted 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year while keeping Indonesian assets attractive.
But BI announced other policy changes to support domestic demand, including increasing liquidity for financial markets though its monetary operations.
“We are doing this as a commitment while we keep the policy rate unchanged,” said Perry, adding that BI’s stance on liquidity policy was “loose”.BI will also seek to stoke its domestic non-deliverable forward market by removing a requirement to have underlying assets for transactions below $5 million, he said.
The central bank launched the rupiah-settled onshore NDF market in November in a bid to create a parallel market to offshore NDF markets, which are often blamed for speculation against the rupiah.
Warjiyo said the rule change is aimed at boosting the number of dollar sellers “which we hope will also increase demand”.
Some analysts expect one or more interest rate cuts later this year to bolster economic growth, though others see an extended hold.
DIFFERING VIEWS
Fakhrul Fulvian of Trimegah Sekuritas Indonesia expects a 25 basis point cut in the fourth quarter, and said “it could be earlier if the current account really improves in the second half.”
But Capital Economics said unlike others, “we think it’s too soon to pencil in rate cuts given the country’s large and widening current account deficit.”
Warjiyo said BI now expects the Fed will not raise interest rates this year or next. In March, he anticipated one hike by the end of 2020.
Indonesia posted larger than expected trade surpluses in February and March, creating some expectation of improvement in the current account gap, which widened to 2.98 percent of GDP in 2018 from 1.60 percent in 2017.
The governor said the current account deficit may widen in the second quarter, but would stay below 3 percent.
Thursday was the first policy meeting after Indonesia’s presidential election on April 17. Private pollsters showed that President Joko Widodo won with around 55 percent of the popular vote, but his challenger former general Prabowo Subianto said he had won and complained of widespread cheating.
The official result of the vote will be announced by May 22.
The rupiah showed little reaction to Thursday’s rates decision. The currency and stock index had jumped a day after the election as the market cheered the quick count results, but since then the gains have been erased.
(Writing by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Ed Davies and Richard Borsuk)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A woman is seen in front of the logo of Zozo, which operates Japan’s popular fashion shopping site Zozotown and is officially called Start Today Co, at an event launching the debut of its formal apparel items, in Tokyo, Japan, July 3, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
April 25, 2019
By Ritsuko Ando
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese online fashion retailer Zozo Inc said it expects its profit to recover in the current fiscal year, after booking its first-ever annual drop in earnings on a failed experiment with bespoke tailoring and clashes with fashion brands.
But Zozo’s results also show its liabilities mounting and cash position dwindling, underscoring worries about the finances of the company that runs the popular Zozotown online mall.
Zozo has captured nearly half of Japan’s online sales of mid- to high-end clothes by setting up a website catering to fashion-forward, higher-income customers.
It has sought to transform itself in recent years from an e-commerce site into a tech-retail hybrid by starting a private brand and launching a made-to-measure service using a bodysuit that allowed users to upload measurements online.
The bodysuit, along with billionaire CEO Yusaku Maezawa’s plans for a lunar flyby as the first private passenger on Elon Musk’s SpaceX mission, had helped spread Zozo’s name globally. The end of the Zozosuit has cast a shadow on its strategy.
Many people who ordered the bodysuit did not use it to buy clothes, leaving Zozo saddled with the huge cost of distributing the suits without seeing returns. It also struggled to cope with orders that did come in, forcing some customers to wait several months for delivery.
Zozo’s operating profit for the year ended March fell 21.5 percent to 25.7 billion yen ($229 million). That was worse than its most recent forecast of 26.5 billion, which had been marked down from an initial projection of 40 billion yen.
Adding to its woes, some fashion brands that helped Zozo build its reputation have left the site. Some of them launched their own e-commerce sites, while others grew unhappy with what they saw as excessive discounting at the Zozotown online mall.
Apparel company Onward Holdings Co, fashion retailer United Arrows and childrens’ brand Miki House have left the site.
Zozo has been trying to regain momentum by adding more mass-market retailers such as Shimamura, but some analysts say this has hurt its initial, fashion-focused image.
Shares of Zozo have nearly halved in the past year on fears that its popularity may be waning, and that its cash position looked weak. The company secured a 15 billion yen commitment line from banks in late March.
Thursday’s results show Zozo’s cash and cash equivalents fell to 21.6 billion yen by end-March, versus 24.6 billion a year earlier, while total liabilities jumped to 56.3 billion from 29.9 billion.
But the company said it expects business to pick up as Japanese consumers were just beginning to buy clothes online.
It forecast a 24.7 percent rise in operating profit to 32 billion yen for the current financial year.
($1 = 111.9300 yen)
(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan is seen outside Downing Street in London, Britain March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo
April 25, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Bank of Scotland plc said on Thursday that Chief Executive Ross McEwan has resigned from his role, signaling a refresh of leadership and direction at the state-backed lender as it continues its journey to full private ownership.
New Zealand-born McEwan, who has led RBS since October 2013, has a 12-month notice period and will remain in his position until a successor has been appointed and an orderly handover has taken place, the bank said.
It is the second key change in RBS’s senior executive team in less than six months following the appointment of Katie Murray as the bank’s chief financial officer in December last year.
The date of McEwan’s departure will be confirmed in due course and Alison Rose, the bank’s CEO of Commercial & Private Banking, is seen as one of the favourites to succeed him.
“After over five and a half very rewarding years, and with the bank in a much stronger financial position it is time for me to step down as CEO,” he said in a statement.
“It has been a privilege to lead this great bank and to have worked with some really outstanding people in process.”
RBS, which is currently more than 62 percent owned by the UK taxpayer, is hosting its annual general meeting on Thursday.
It was bailed out by the UK government to the tune of 45 billion pounds ($58.06 billion) during the 2008 financial crisis and has spent the last decade cutting costs, restructuring its balance sheet, and refocusing on core domestic UK business and consumer lending.
(Reporting By Sinead Cruise, editing by Huw Jones)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A group of Afghan migrants walk along a main road after crossing the Turkey-Iran border near Dogubayazit, Agri province, eastern Turkey, April 11, 2018. Afghans who previously found jobs in Iran are also returning to Afghanistan in large numbers due to Iran’s sharp economic downturn. REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File Photo
April 25, 2019
By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Hamid Shalizi
GENEVA/KABUL (Reuters) – Abdul Saboor escaped poverty and instability in Afghanistan three years ago with his wife and three children and found work in neighboring Iran. Now he has returned home, despite the fact that life there has not improved.
His job at a grocery store in the central Iranian city of Isfahan brought in about 280 dollars a month, enough to support his family. But the Iranian rial took a dive last year and his employer cut his wages to less than 100 dollars a month.
“The economic situation in Iran is really bad,” said the 28-year-old. “Wages have gone down since last year and a lot of families had to return to Afghanistan.”
Afghans began moving to Iran in large numbers after the Soviet invasion in 1979 and they continued to migrate for work through decades of conflict, sending money to relatives back home that helped bolster Afghanistan’s struggling economy.
In 2017, there were approximately 2.5 million to 3 million Afghans in Iran, according to Iranian government estimates cited by the United Nations.
That number could be cut in half by the end of this year. More than 770,000 Afghans left Iran last year as the currency faltered and an extra 570,000 are expected to go this year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in January.
Iran’s economy has been squeezed since President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran last year after pulling out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.
U.S. officials have said the sanctions are intended to pressure Iran to negotiate over what they say are its aggressive missile program and regional policy; critics say they hurt ordinary people and entrench hardline rulers.
The rial lost approximately 70 percent of its value last year before recovering slightly, disrupting Iran’s foreign trade and helping boost annual inflation fourfold to nearly 40 percent in November. Currency fluctuations and the unstable economy have led to sporadic street protests since late 2017.
An IOM report in January noted that a big jump in the number of Afghans returning from Iran last year was “largely driven by recent political and economic issues in Iran including massive currency devaluation”.
Afghans typically took harsh, labor-intensive jobs in Iran and their departure will mean higher production costs, said Saeed Leylaz, a Tehran-based economist and political analyst.
UNDER PRESSURE
Over the past year, many Afghans in Iran have sought advice about returning from the office of Grand Ayatollah Mohaghegh Kabuli – a senior Afghan religious leader based in the holy city of Qom, according to an administrator in the office who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.
“With the crash of the value of the rial, staying in Iran has become very difficult for Afghan migrants,” he said. “They are under pressure.”
Naim, 18, followed the path of two of his older brothers and came to Iran from Afghanistan when he was only ten years old but quickly managed to find work in construction in Tehran.
The work was backbreaking and his family faced hardship: one brother lost four fingers in a construction accident in Tehran.
But he persevered, because he could make more money than at home, and eventually got a job as a doorman at a multi-story apartment complex in Tehran.
Last year, as the economic situation in Iran began to deteriorate, one of his older brothers decided he could no longer support his wife and six children and moved back to Herat in western Afghanistan.
“My brother’s wife and children were hungry and this currency has no value so they went back,” Naim said.
His brother started working in agriculture and has been able to open a small shop in Herat with his earnings. He is now pushing Naim to come home from Iran, a trip that he and approximately 150 friends and extended family are planning to take in two months.
“We work and we work and for what?” Naim said. “We have to go back.”
He could face an uncertain future once he returns.
“The economic opportunities in Afghanistan are no longer there. It’s not like there’s a lack of opportunities in Iran and new opportunities in Afghanistan,” said Sarah Craggs, IOM’s senior program coordinator for Afghanistan, who is based in Kabul. “There are no opportunities in either country really.”
Afghans have long sought better lives in other countries and a lack of jobs in Iran could also boost numbers trying to head further west to Europe.
The latest drop in remittances from Iran is already having an impact on the economies of the Afghan provinces of Herat, Badghis and Ghor, an IOM report said in January.
Abdul Saboor now earns about 130 dollars a month working at a restaurant in Herat.
“Life was much better in Iran but since the financial crisis, it was difficult to survive so we had to come back despite all the hardship here,” he said. “I was the lucky one and found a job while thousands of others are jobless.”
(Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh in Geneva and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; additional reporting by Storay Karimi in Herat; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Kering is seen during the company’s 2015 annual results presentation in Paris, France, February 19, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau
April 25, 2019
MILAN (Reuters) – French luxury group Kering is close to agreeing to pay between 1.3 billion and 1.4 billion euros ($1.5-1.6 billion) to settle a dispute with Italian authorities over unpaid taxes by its fashion brand Gucci, three sources told Reuters.
The agreement between the French luxury goods group and the Italian tax authority is expected to be signed in the first days of May, said one of the sources, who all have direct knowledge of the matter.
Kering had no immediate comment while the tax authority could not immediately be reached for comment.
Earlier this year Kering said it faced a claim for 1.4 billion euros in unpaid Italian taxes, adding that it contested the preliminary findings.
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, editing by Agnieszka Flak)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The logo of French car manufacturer Peugeot is seen at a dealership of the company in Selestat, France, January 14, 2019.REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
April 25, 2019
PARIS (Reuters) – French carmaker PSA Group said first-quarter revenue fell 1.1 percent, as sales continued to decline in China and were also impacted by the Peugeot maker’s withdrawal from Iran.
Revenue declined to 17.98 billion euros ($20.05 billion) in January-March from 18.2 billion a year earlier, the Paris-based carmaker said on Thursday.
(Reporting by Laurence Frost; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
Source: OANN
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