USA - It wasn’t so long ago that the challenge of making money with interest rates stuck around zero was investors’ top concern. Those days are gone. Today, they’re worried about the opposite: the threat that now-rising rates pose for fixed income investments.
SPAIN - In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo sharply criticised Gibraltar's creation of the reef last month in disputed waters that were used by Spanish fishermen.
UK - It will take "years or maybe decades" for the turmoil in the Middle East to "play itself out," UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has told BBC News.
PARIS, FRANCE - Saudi Arabia on Sunday warned the West against putting pressure on Egypt's military-backed government to halt a crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
EGYPT - A mob marched nuns through the battle-torn streets of Cairo ‘like prisoners of war’ in the latest outrage against Egypt’s Christian minority. Sister Manal, principal of a Franciscan school in suburban Cairo, watched for six hours as a mob looted the building, knocked the cross off the gate and replaced it with a black banner resembling the flag of Al Qaeda.
USA - The world is losing trust in the dollar as a safe haven. A major blow came after Germany's Bundesbank demanded the repatriation of a big chunk of its gold being held in the US. Because as RT's Gayane Chichakyan reports, some are concerned the assets of foreign nations in the Federal Reserve are not secure or even there. The Germans were infuriated when the US Federal reserve didn't even let them examine their own assets properly. Peter Boehringer, the founder and chairman of 'German Precious Metal Association', says that's a bad sign.
USA - In his statement on recent events in Egypt, President Obama said, "America cannot determine the future of Egypt. That’s a task for the Egyptian people. We don’t take sides with any particular party or political figure. I know it’s tempting inside of Egypt to blame the United States or the West or some other outside actor for what’s gone wrong."
EGYPT - Egypt is a key bottleneck in the global oil industry. Should the current turmoil in the North African country get any worse, a potential oil spike could damage any nascent economic recovery.
UK - Over half a million people in the UK are resorting to going to the bank all over the country today. But, it’s not just any old bank in the high street down in some borough of the East End of London.
GERMANY - The country’s special envoy for the centenary of the conflict, Andreas Meitzner, requested a series of meetings in London earlier this month with his British counterpart, Andrew Murrison, as well as senior officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to hear about the UK’s plans and outline Germany’s position.
USA - A 12-year-old girl is recovering from serious injuries after she was mauled by a black bear while she jogged in rural Michigan, in one of an unusual spate of such attacks across the US.
USA - Every President, every politician, and every human being tells lies and engages in acts of hypocrisy. But Barack Obama does these things to a far greater degree than anyone else that I have ever known of.
AUSTRALIA - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that parents who choose not to have their children vaccinated will miss out on thousands of dollars in government benefits.
ISRAEL - It was an event that went almost unnoticed against the backdrop of the unfolding upheavals in neighbouring Egypt. Last Wednesday night, without fanfare, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators sat down at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem for their first face-to-face negotiations in three years.
EGYPT - Brent oil jumped to a four–month high on Thursday on fears a new wave of political turmoil in Egypt could disrupt supplies through the Suez Canal.