Judge dismisses case against British former trader Tom Hayes, who was jailed over interest rate scandal
A New York court has dismissed a criminal indictment against Tom Hayes, the British former trader at UBS and Citigroup who served five and a half years in a UK prison for rigging the Libor lending benchmark.
Prosecutors in the US filed a motion to dismiss the case against Hayes and another former UBS trader, Roger Darin.
Continue reading...World’s richest person plans revamp of social media platform, asking users if he should bring back Vine
Elon Musk is considering charging Twitter users $20 (£17.30) a month or $240 a year for a blue tick on their account, as the world’s richest person prepares an overhaul of the social media platform.
The Tesla chief executive is planning changes to Twitter’s Blue subscription service, according to the tech newsletter Platformer, including raising the $4.99 a month fee to $19.99. Users verified by the platform – who carry a blue tick flagging them as an authentic source – would have 90 days to sign up to Blue or lose their check mark.
Continue reading...UK entrepreneur turns down live TV debate and says government should instead engage with local activists
The British entrepreneur Richard Branson has rejected an invitation from Singapore’s home affairs minister to debate the death penalty, urging him to instead engage with local activists who oppose the “inhumane, brutal practice”.
Branson had been invited by the ministry of home affairs to debate capital punishment live on TV, after he described it as “a serious stain on Singapore’s reputation”, and condemned the execution earlier this year of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam.
Continue reading...CWU is involved in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions with the company
Planned strikes by Royal Mail workers in the next two weeks have been called off after a challenge by the company.
Members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are involved in a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. A series of strikes has taken place in recent weeks and more had been planned on 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 November.
Continue reading...Cities near Foxconn plant draw up plans to isolate migrant workers who are returning to home towns
Cities in central China have hastily drawn up plans to isolate migrant workers fleeing to their home towns from the country’s largest iPhone factory, amid fears they will spread coronavirus after leaving the plant in Covid-hit Zhengzhou.
Videos shared on Chinese social media showed people who are allegedly workers at the Foxconn plant climbing over fences and carrying their belongings along a road. It was previously reported that a number of workers had been placed under quarantine because of an outbreak of the disease.
Continue reading...Many new products now need multiple safety test facilities for home and abroad, say entrepreneurs
British inventions are being brought to market overseas because new Brexit safety certification rules mean they can’t be sold in the UK.
Trade bodies and entrepreneurs have blamed the government’s decision to stop accepting the European Union’s CE mark and instead create a new UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark showing that a product is safe.
Continue reading...Wonnarua people want Ravensworth Homestead added to the state heritage register and to become a site of reconciliation
The New South Wales independent planning commission has for the first time ruled against a coalmine extension in Singleton.
Scott Franks and Robert Lester, representatives of the Plains Clans of the Wonnarua People (PCWP), learned this week that priceless Wonnarua cultural heritage in the Upper Hunter region – centred on the Ravensworth Homestead – would be protected because the planning commission had denied Glencore’s Glendell coalmine expansion.
Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter
Sophie Nicholls is a freelance writer based in the Hunter Valley
Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community
Continue reading...EU commissioner says Elon Musk’s platform must ‘fly by our rules’ as UK minister raises concerns over content moderation
Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition has been polarizing, sparking reactions from politicians, regulators and non-profits across different continents.
Some have expressed concerns about potential changes to Twitter’s content moderation policies now that it’s in the hands of the Tesla billionaire, while others celebrated how they expect the platform’s newly minted leader will handle content and speech on Twitter.
Continue reading...Oil company’s third-quarter result smashes Wall Street forecasts – as does Chevron’s £11.2bn
The US oil supermajor ExxonMobil has reported a quarterly profit of nearly $20bn (£17.3bn), $4bn more than analysts had forecast, almost matching the earnings of the tech giant Apple.
Exxon’s $19.7bn profit for the third quarter outstripped the record $17.9bn it reported for the previous quarter, as it became the latest fossil fuel producer to enjoy soaring earnings, a day after Shell announced global profits of $9.5bn between July and September.
Continue reading...Ministers agree to give regulator more powers to ensure supplies while plans for a capacity market could be ready in December
Households and businesses will get no immediate relief on their utility bills after Friday’s meeting of energy ministers, with discussions instead aimed at ensuring electricity and gas supplies will be ample next winter.
Federal, state and territory energy ministers gathered in Melbourne for an update on power and gas markets, and to discuss progress on creating some form of a capacity market that would bolster the reliance of the energy sector as coal-fired plants exit.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter and afternoon email to get your daily news roundup
Continue reading...The company reported an 8% increase of earnings at $90.1bn beating Wall Street expectations with net profit of $1.29 a share
Apple’s quarterly earnings on Thursday revealed that the company is weathering the ongoing tech downturn better than its competitors, reporting revenue and profit that topped Wall Street targets.
Revenue rose 8% this quarter to $90.1bn, above estimates of $88.9bn, while net profit was $1.29 a share, topping with the average analyst estimate of $1.27 a share, according to data from the market research firm Refinitiv.
Continue reading...Comedian and campaigner tells planning inquiry retailer is failing to use landmark building imaginatively
The comedian Griff Rhys Jones is the latest high-profile name to weigh in against Marks & Spencer’s plan to raze and redevelop its main London store, accusing the retailer of not making the most of its landmark building.
Jones, who presented the BBC TV series Restoration in the 2000s, which identified significant buildings in need of repair, told an inquiry into the development of the store on Oxford Street near Marble Arch that, having shopped there, he “would venture that M&S are not using the space in a very imaginative way compared to the possibilities old buildings offer. I wonder if the ‘unsuitability’ has more to do with the desire to create a much bigger floor space and offices.”
Continue reading...Minister for financial services says government’s accountability regime is ‘locked and loaded’ and will not be changed
The Labor government will push ahead with a new compensation scheme for victims of financial misconduct, refusing to water down civil penalties for the finance sector, and rejecting a claim it would give the responsible minister “god-like powers” to punish banks.
The assistant treasurer and minister for financial services, Stephen Jones, said the government’s financial accountability regime was “locked and loaded” and will not be changed, and rejected Liberal senator Andrew Bragg’s call to have parliament determine the scope of a new levy on financial industry members that will pay for the scheme.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter and afternoon email to get your daily news roundup
Continue reading...Shake-up aims to draw line under series of scandals and new £3.5bn loss at Swiss bank
Credit Suisse has disclosed sweeping plans to cut 9,000 jobs and raise billions of pounds from investors in a Saudi-led funding round, as part of a company-wide overhaul meant to draw a line under a series of scandals and help it recover from a £3.5bn loss.
The announcement follows months of speculation over the scale of change scheduled under its new boss, Ulrich Körner, who has been tasked with scaling back the investment bank and slashing costs.
Continue reading...Oil giant to boost dividends as firm continues to benefit from energy price spike after Ukraine invasion
Shell has reported profits of nearly $9.5bn (£8.2bn) between July and September, more than double the amount it made during the same period a year earlier, as it said it would increase its payments to shareholders.
The oil company continued to benefit from soaring energy prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it was not able to match the record $11.5bn profit it earned between April and June, because of weaker refining and gas trading.
Continue reading...Larger-than-forecast drop to £1.5bn in third quarter came despite rising interest rates
Profits at Lloyds Banking Group dropped by 26% in the three months to September, as the UK’s “deteriorating” economic outlook forced it to put aside nearly £670m to protect against potential defaults on loans and mortgages.
Lloyds, which owns Halifax and is the country’s largest mortgage lender, said pre-tax profits had tumbled to £1.5bn in the third quarter, down from £2bn during the same period last year. That was larger than the 9.5% fall to £1.8bn that analysts had predicted.
Continue reading...Coalition of 40-plus charities and groups launches amid fears of spending cuts to plug public finances
Pressure is building on the leaders of Britain’s two biggest political parties to support higher taxes on wealth amid growing fears over the impact that a renewed austerity drive would have amid the cost of living crisis.
In an intervention which comes as the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, considers options for filling a £35bn black hole in the public finances, a new coalition of 40 charities and campaign groups – including Oxfam, Save the Children and Christians Against Poverty – said Britain’s tax system was broken and those who paid the most should “pay their proper share”.
Continue reading...IPPR says extra £62bn a year needed to match global leader Israel after sharp decline since 2014
Britain’s plan to become a post-Brexit “science and technology superpower” has suffered a significant setback after a fall in research and development investment of almost a fifth since 2014, according to a report.
The Institute for Public Policy Research said the UK’s share of global investment in R&D projects – including in health and life sciences – had fallen sharply from 4.2% eight years ago to 3.4% in 2019 immediately before the Covid pandemic struck.
Continue reading...Experts say crude oil pipeline from Uganda to Tanzania will produce 25 times host nations’ combined annual emissions
An oil pipeline under construction in east Africa will produce vast amounts of carbon dioxide, according to new analysis. The project will result in 379m tonnes of climate-heating pollution, according to an expert assessment, more than 25 times the combined annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania, the host nations.
The East African crude oil pipeline (EACOP) will transport oil drilled in a biodiverse national park in Uganda more than 870 miles to a port in Tanzania for export. The main backers of the multibillion dollar project are the French oil company TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
Continue reading...Latest in a series of difficult quarterly earnings reports forced Mark Zuckerberg to defend his virtual reality project
Shares of Meta plummeted on Wednesday after the company announced mixed results in its third-quarter earnings report, alongside billion-dollar losses in the division devoted to its ambitious “metaverse” project.
The Facebook parent company beat analyst predictions for revenue but offered a weak forecast for the upcoming quarter. It posted $27.7bn in revenue for the third quarter, higher than the $27.4bn predicted but 4% less than the same period last year. Its earnings a share, which accounts for expenses, was $1.64 – lower than the $1.89 predicted.
Continue reading...