Pope draws in Manila crowds January 18, 2015 A RECORD 6m-7m people are estimated to have attended Pope Francis’ final mass in Manila’s Rizal park yesterday, concluding his five-day visit to the Philippines. The turnout breaks the record set by John Paul II in 1995, when some five million people came to the same park to attend mass. The 78-year-old Argentine pope, wearing [...]
Republicans slam Obama’s tax proposals January 18, 2015 US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s plans for new taxes on the wealthy and on Wall Street banks were met with fierce criticism from the Republicans yesterday, signalling the challenges facing any attempt to shake-up the US tax code. Obama will use his State of the Union address tomorrow to propose a raft of new measures aimed [...]
Brewer AB InBev under fire over late payment to UK suppliers January 18, 2015 AB InBev, the brewing giant behind Budweiser, Stella Artois and Boddingtons, has been criticised by the government for imposing excessively long payment terms on its small UK suppliers. Brewpack, which supplies conveyor belt systems, told the BBC that it could no longer afford to take orders from AB InBev because it demanded payment terms of [...]
General Election 2015: Lib Dem Nick Clegg confirms plans to tax wealthy January 18, 2015 Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said yesterday his party would raise taxes for high earners, if it won power in the general election. The deputy prime minister told BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “[Lib Dem plans to cut the deficit would involve] a mixture of the following components: clamping down on tax evasion and tax avoidance, [...]
Swiss franc crisis: Alpari disconnects phone lines as spreadbetting platform problems leave trader in shock January 18, 2015 Traders using Alpari’s spreadbetting platform have reacted with anger to the firm’s problems and its failure to communicate with clients who were locked out of their accounts. When the firm folded it initially told customers it had gone into insolvency, only to change the announcement on its website to say it could be sold [...]
China’s Hutchison Whampoa pushing ahead with £9bn O2 takeover talks January 18, 2015 Hutchison Whampoa, the owner of the UK’s fourth-largest mobile network Three, is continuing talks with Spain’s Telefonica to buy its UK network O2. Telefonica was in talks with BT to sell O2, valued at around £9bn, but the deal fell apart when BT opted for exclusive deal talks with Orange and Deutsche Telekom to buy [...]
Davos 2015: World Economic Forum to get back to basics January 18, 2015 Over the last 44 years the world’s political and business elite has migrated to the serene Swiss Alpine town of Davos to discuss the key challenges facing global development in the ensuing year. The 2015 meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) will be much of the same: 40 heads of state will make up [...]
Building societies struggle as rest of finance sector sees growth January 18, 2015 Finance firms ended 2014 strongly, except for building societies, new survey data shows. Business volumes were reported to have increased by 64 per cent of financial services firms in the three months december, according to figures released by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers. This compares to seven per cent of firms [...]
Insurer optimism hit by declining profits January 18, 2015 OPTIMISM among life insurers deteriorated in the final quarter of 2014, as costs rose and profitability declined. According to the latest financial services survey from CBI/PwC, costs are expected to continue to grow and the reduction in profitability is expected to continue. PwC’s Jonathan Howe said: “It is not surprising to see a significant fall [...]
Demand for engineers leads to hiring growth January 18, 2015 THE JOB market is booming, new survey data shows. Professional recruitment firms have 29 per cent more vacancies than this time last year, according to figures released today by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (Apsco). The biggest jobs growth was in engineering with a 53 per cent increase in the number of permanent vacancies. [...]
