DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Analysis: In Turkey, an election reckoning for the rise and fall of Erdogan's economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Jonathan Spicer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

The May 14 vote, which lands during the Turkish Republic's centenary year, is Erdogan's biggest test yet. At the same time, a global reversal in market liquidity left Turkey and other emerging markets starved for funding. But the economic crisis was damaging. This trend accelerated in 2013, wiping out big gains made in 2006-2010 during Erdogan's first decade in charge. "If Erdogan wins the election and continues his economic policy it will come to a complete crash at one point.

☆ The Coronation of King Charles: Order of Service
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +46 min

The Archbishop saysI here present unto you King Charles, your undoubted King: Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same? Christopher Finney GC saysI here present unto you King Charles, your undoubted King: Wherefore all you who are come this day to do your homage and service, are you willing to do the same? We praise thee, we bless thee,we worship thee, we glorify thee,we give thanks to thee for thy great glory,O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. O clap your hands together, all ye people;O sing unto God with the voice of melody. The King touches the Ring and the Archbishop saysReceive this Ring, symbol of kingly dignity and a sign of the covenant sworn this day, between God and King, King and people.

☆ Beijing expects foreigners to trust, not verify
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

In recent months, Chinese investigators have detained employees of U.S. due-diligence firm Mintz Group, visited consultancy Bain & Company and suspended auditor Deloitte’s Beijing operations for three months. Security watchdogs have restricted overseas access to financial data providers like Wind Information, as well as academic database China National Knowledge Infrastructure. Local banks loaned 3.9 trillion yuan ($560 billion) in March alone while corporations issued 328 billion yuan of bonds. Besides Wind, other Chinese data providers including company databases Qichacha and TianYanCha have stopped opening to offshore users, according to three of the sources. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Charles III has commissioned new works for his coronation, adding to the rich tapestry of pieces composed for the occasion. The first coronation music was likely sung chants, which, starting in 1603 with the coronation of James I, were refashioned into coronation anthems now with English text. Both have since become staples in the coronation service. And at the most recent coronation, comparisons between Elizabeth II and Charles III are unsurprisingly being made. Charles III’s coronation is set to usher in the new Carolean era, in the hopes that it will reflect its namesake Charles II and his contributions to art and music.

☆ Hong Kong police seize statue in "incitement to subversion" probe
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Jessie Pang | Thomson Reuters | Jessie Pang Joined Reuters In After An Internship. She Covers Hong Kong With A Focus On Politics | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, May 5 (Reuters) - Hong Kong police seized an exhibit on Friday in connection with what they said was an attempt to incite subversion, with media reporting it was a statue commemorating Beijing's Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy protesters in 1989. Hong Kong had traditionally held the largest annual vigils in the world to commemorate the crackdown. The two-tonne copper Pillar of Shame was first exhibited at a Tiananmen Square commemoration in Hong Kong in 1997, the same year Britain handed the city back to China. In 2021, the University of Hong Kong dismantled and removed the statue "based on external legal advice and risk assessment for the best interest of the university". It is not clear if the Tiananmen Square vigil will take place this year.

☆ Opinion | Politics Can’t Fix What Ails Us
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( David French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

I’ve been watching this phenomenon as well, and wrote my own, similar piece, back in 2021. But it’s worth contemplating in part because it is but one of multiple significant negative cultural changes that doesn’t seem to have clear political solutions. Most Americans report significant feelings of non-belonging. Friendship and religious membership had declined for both groups, but the decline was much more pronounced for those with no college education. I don’t want this newsletter to be too depressing, but there are many more similarly disheartening social statistics.

☆ Why China’s Censors Are Deleting Videos About Poverty
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Li Yuan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A singer vented the widespread frustration among young, educated Chinese about their dire finances and gloomy job prospects, like gig work. “I wash my face every day, but my pocket is cleaner than my face,” he sings. Censors blocked discussions about him, and local authorities were stationed outside his house to prevent journalists from visiting his wife. In 2021, its top leader, Xi Jinping, declared “a comprehensive victory in the battle against poverty.” Yet many people remain poor or live just above the poverty line. With the country’s economic prospects dimming and the people’s increasing anxiety about their future, poverty has become a taboo subject that can draw ire from the government.

The election came after World Bank board members interviewed Banga for four hours on Monday. Biden congratulated Banga on his "resounding approval" to run the World Bank, which he described as "one of humanity’s most critical institutions to reduce poverty and expand prosperity around the globe." "Ajay Banga will be a transformative leader, bringing expertise, experience, and innovation to the position of World Bank President," Biden said. "The Board looks forward to working with Mr. Banga on the World Bank Group Evolution process, as discussed at the April 2023 Spring Meetings, and on all the World Bank Group’s ambitions and efforts aimed at tackling the toughest development challenges facing developing countries," the bank said. The World Bank has been led by an American since its founding at the end of World War Two, while the International Monetary Fund has been led by a European.

☆ Here are Wednesday's biggest analyst calls: Apple, Chewy, Disney, Wells Fargo, AMD, Coinbase & more
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Bank of America upgrades Pearson to buy from underperform Bank of America said the selloff in the British education company is overdone. Bank of America upgrades Cogent to buy from underperform Bank of America upgraded the internet services provider and says it sees "new sales growth." Bernstein upgrades Marriott to outperform from market perform Bernstein said the hotel giant has the "highest quality" earnings stream. " Evercore ISI reiterates Wells Fargo as outperform Evercore said it's sticking with the larger banks as regional concerns continue. Berenberg upgrades HSBC to buy from hold Berenberg said in its upgrade of the UK bank that it's "structurally attractive."

☆ Ajay Banga: Indian American businessman is the new president of the World Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The election came after World Bank board members interviewed Banga for four hours on Monday. Biden congratulated Banga on his “resounding approval” to run the World Bank, which he described as “one of humanity’s most critical institutions to reduce poverty and expand prosperity around the globe.”“Ajay Banga will be a transformative leader, bringing expertise, experience, and innovation to the position of World Bank President,” Biden said. “It is a challenging moment, but it’s a moment where the World Bank remains more vital than ever, and where getting the evolution of the World Bank is absolutely critical,” the official said. “The Board looks forward to working with Mr. Banga on the World Bank Group Evolution process … on all the World Bank Group’s ambitions and efforts aimed at tackling the toughest development challenges facing developing countries,” the bank said. The World Bank has been led by an American since its founding at the end of World War Two, while the International Monetary Fund has been led by a European.

☆ Wolfe double-upgrades this regional bank stock that's an 'attractive place to hide'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Prosperity Bancshares is a safe pick in a sector that's been recently defined by risk, according to Wolfe Research. Analyst Bill Carcache double-upgraded the regional bank stock to outperform from underperform, saying the bank has "relative safety on high ground" amid sector turmoil that was initially ignited by the closure of Silicon Valley Bank in March and reignited by the auction won by JPMorgan for First Republic Bank this week. His new target implies the stock could rally 15% from Tuesday's close. That's of increasing importance as industry insiders expect more stringent regulations following the recent bank failures, he said. He said that the bank has historically had fewer write-offs than regional peers.

The resumption of bilateral financial discussions comes ahead of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's planned visit to South Korea on Sunday and Monday for talks with President Yoon Suk Yeol. Japan and South Korea will resume regular finance dialogue, likely to be held annually, at "an appropriate timing," Suzuki told reporters after the bilateral meeting. Washington has pressed both countries to resolve these disputes to better counter rising threats from China and North Korea and other regional challenges. Under Yoon, South Korea has resumed trilateral military drills and agreed to more intelligence sharing on issues like tracking ballistic missile launches from North Korea. China's finance minister and central bank head were not present at a trilateral meeting, with their deputies attending instead.

☆ ADB says its new climate technology hub aims to help transfer knowledge to developing countries
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailADB says its new climate technology hub aims to help transfer knowledge to developing countriesWoochong Um of the Asian Development Bank says its partnership with South Korea is meant to help developing countries make a similar "quantum leap" to prosperity and sustainability.

☆ Why Warren Buffett Runs Berkshire Hathaway His Way - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Roger Lowenstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Not surprisingly, Mr. Buffett has become a target for progressive institutional investors. (A resolution calling for Mr. Buffett to step down as board chairman, though not as C.E.O., fared the worst.) CalPERS, which manages retirement funds in California, demands that Berkshire publish an annual “assessment” on how it manages climate risks. (This is a good place to note: I’m not only a Warren Buffett biographer, I’m also a long-term Berkshire stockholder.) Mr. Buffett was the son of a conservative Republican who served four terms in Congress.

☆ The park with the most roller coasters in the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Forrest Brown | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +13 min

Impressive collections can be found in many parts of the world, but which park currently holds more roller coasters than any other? With a whopping 20 roller coasters, Six Flags Magic Mountain even rates a mention with Guinness World Records – helping the park justify its “Thrill Capital of the World” slogan. “I think there are a lot of great rides at Six Flags Magic Mountain.” he told CNN Travel recently. “But there are some other more fundamental reasons for why Six Flags Magic Mountain has so many roller coasters.”Location, prosperity and weather all played roles, he said. They’re fast, they’re twisty.”GoliathMartin Lewison said Goliath has the biggest drop of any traditional-style roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

☆ This 44-year-old founder and CEO is stepping down to go on a 3-year religious mission. 'I feel such confidence that this is the right thing.'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Davis Smith founded Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear company and certified B Corporation, in 2014. In July, he will step down as CEO to go on a 3-year religious mission in Brazil. Damien Huang, Cotopaxi's president who joined the company from Eddie Bauer, where he was CEO, will move into the role. "But I feel such confidence that this is the right thing." And we don't do that by isolating ourselves or saying, "We're better than you," or "You're not doing it right."

CNN —Thousands of foreign nationals have been evacuated from Sudan as clashes between two rival military factions vying for control of the country continue despite a supposed truce. Another eyewitness told CNN that Rapid Support Forces had moved in to the Wad Al-Bashir area, west of Omdurman (a major city just northwest of the capital Khartoum). Residents on the ground have told CNN that markets and shops have been heavily targeted by looters in the past few days. China, meanwhile, said it had evacuated 940 Chinese citizens and 231 foreign personnel from Sudan to Saudi Arabia between Wednesday and Saturday. “In order to protect the lives and property of Chinese citizens in Sudan, the Chinese military has been ordered to evacuate Chinese personnel in Sudan,” said Senior Colonel Tan Kefei.

☆ Veracruz state: Home of the flying Voladores, Mexico's top coffee and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Tim Leffel | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The Voladores of Veracruz in Mexico have a history that goes back at least 1,400 years. “The flying ritual has never had a learning age, it is a project of a lifetime,” he says. Nearly all of the Voladores train in or around Papantla, where the flying schools prepare young people to take over for those who are eventually aging out. Coffee, ancient ruins and an overlooked capital cityMen with ankle ropes flying deftly around a pole are not the only export from this state, though. The big draw, however, is Mexico’s second most important archaeological museum after the one in Mexico City.

☆ These strange-looking turtles in Hong Kong could soon be extinct
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Chris Lau | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Hong Kong CNN —One of the world’s most densely populated cities might seem an unlikely refuge for endangered wildlife. While in Hong Kong, the unlikeliness of the setting has enabled them to fly largely under poachers’ radar. Professor Sung Yik-hei with a Big-headed turtle at a lab at Lingnan University in Hong Kong on April 13, 2023. Courtesy Sung Yik-hei Professor Sung Yik-hei monitors an area near a river in Hong Kong on April 13, 2023. A few hundred are left in Hong Kong, and perhaps even fewer in its other homes of Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

[1/3] People walk past a branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Beijing, China April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Florence LoSummarySummary Companies Top five lenders post shrinking net marginsNon-performing loans hold steady at all fiveQ1 net profit growth mostly flatSHANGHAI/BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) - Five of China's largest lenders posted shrinking margins in the first quarter on Friday, as loan re-pricing bites. Following suit were Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (AgBank) (601288.SS), Bank of China (BoC) (601988.SS), China's Bank of Communications Co Ltd (BoCom) (601328.SS), and China Construction Bank Corp (CCB)(601939.SS), all posting dips in their NIM. All lenders posted flat to around 5% net profit growth with BoCom logging the highest first-quarter net profit at over 5%. AgBank came in second with 1.75% as the others posted flat net profit growth over the same period.

☆ Sam Altman is building his utopia, whether you want it or not
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

Altman told Insider, "We debate our approach frequently and carefully." "I don't think anyone can lose your dad young and wish he didn't have more time with him," Altman told Insider. Altman told Insider that his thinking had evolved since those posts. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ He's played chess with Peter Thiel, sparred with Elon Musk and once, supposedly, stopped a plane crash: Inside Sam Altman's world, where truth is stranger than fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Melia Russell | Julia Black | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +41 min

But, "you do at some point need to start having contact with reality," he told Insider. The plan was still only a rough sketch, Blania told Insider, but that didn't seem to matter to his host. "He always wanted to understand everything at a very deep level," Thrun told Insider in an email. (When asked about guns, Altman told Insider he'd been "happy to have one both times my home was broken into while I was there.") When asked about this, Altman told Insider in an email: "i can guess what that's about; these stories grow crazily inflated over the years of getting re-told!

☆ IEA should be 'very careful' about undermining key oil investments -OPEC chief
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Maha El Dahan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Such comments could lead to oil market volatility in future, he said. Oil prices rose above $80 a barrel on the back of the decision, having fallen as low as $70 per barrel last month. Birol, in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, said OPEC should be careful about pushing oil prices up as that would translate into a weaker global economy. OPEC+ and the IEA have jousted in recent months over their outlooks for global oil supply and demand. OPEC+ decided last year it would stop using data from the West's energy watchdog when assessing the state of the oil market.

☆ Jane Davis Doggett, 93, Dies; Graphic Designer Helped People Find Their Way
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Neil Genzlinger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the mid-1950s, when Jane Davis Doggett was earning a master’s degree at Yale’s Graduate School of Art and Architecture, she was surrounded by students and professors who were focused on the arenas, malls, medical centers, transit hubs and other huge projects that were coming to define America’s postwar era of prosperity and urban renewal. Ms. Doggett had a different interest. “Projects were new, complicated and big,” she recalled in a 2013 interview with the designer Tracy Turner posted on the website of the Society for Experiential Graphic Design. “It occurred to me to think about the person coming to these behemoths and what the human scale should be and how this person would find his way and make use of the place.”The field she began working in didn’t really have a name at the time but is now called environmental graphic design. She became one of its founding figures, coming up with systems to help people navigate complex spaces, a specialty called “wayfinding.”Airports were a calling: In Miami, Houston, Baltimore and several dozen other cities, Ms. Doggett used color coding, symbols, uniform signage and other touches to help travelers find their way around airports that would have otherwise been more intimidating.

☆ OPEC says IEA should be 'very careful' with repeated calls to stop investing in oil
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said finger-pointing and misrepresenting the actions of OPEC and OPEC+ was "counterproductive." OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais said finger-pointing and misrepresenting the actions of OPEC and OPEC+ was "counterproductive." He added that the influential group of 23 oil-exporting exporting nations was not targeting oil prices, but instead focusing on market fundamentals. In a Bloomberg TV interview on Wednesday, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol used similar language in warning OPEC about boosting oil prices. "Other energy markets have been far more volatile," al-Ghais said, "with oil markets less so, mainly due to the stabilizing role of OPEC and the OPEC+ group."

Search resuls for: "prosperity"

25 mentions found