Putin critic Navalny freed from jail August 23, 2019 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been released from prison, his spokesperson confirmed this morning. Navalny, President Putin’s most prominent critic, had spent 30 days behind bars for violations of the country’s law on protesting. Read more: Theresa May demands Salisbury poisoning suspects face justice ahead of Vladmir Putin talks He was locked up after [...]
Burford executive accused of exchanging documents for sex tape in lawsuit August 22, 2019 A senior executive at Burford Capital has been accused of unlawfully trading “sensitive” documentas for a sex tape in a $91m (£75m) lawsuit in the High Court. The lawsuit marks the latest battle for the troubled litigation funder, which was subject to a short attack by US firm Muddy Waters earlier this month. Daniel Hall, [...]
Nostrum share price takes hit from analyst note August 21, 2019 Nostrum Oil and Gas struggled on the markets today after taking a hit from an analyst downgrade. Shares took a battering, falling by 19 per cent to 28.35p. It came as analysts at Berenberg downgraded the shares from “buy” to “sell”, setting a new target price of 25p from 200p. Read more: BP and Glencore [...]
BP and Glencore struggling to offload contaminated Russian oil August 21, 2019 BP and Glencore are still trying to offload huge reserves of tainted Russian crude oil several months after problems were discovered. The UK-listed giants have around 600,000 tonnes of the oil which they are struggling to sell off, several traders told Reuters. Read more: Opec agrees to extend oil supply cuts by nine months A [...]
Markets drop as US and China enter fierce war of words August 15, 2019 A fierce war of words between China and the US broke out today after Beijing vowed to strike back over the 10 per cent tariffs the Trump administration is set to apply to $300bn of Chinese goods. Read more: Recession warning lights flash red as US and UK ‘yield curves’ invert China’s finance ministry said [...]
Kazakh-stunned: Copper miner Kaz takes hit as prices falter August 15, 2019 Kazakhstan-based miner Kaz Minerals sounded a cautious note this morning after being stung by copper prices in the first half of the year. Pre-tax profit at the company dropped nearly 19 per cent to $289m, hurt especially by a 11 per cent drop in the price of copper, it’s main product. Read more: Evraz hails [...]
What was behind Friday’s National Grid outage? Network theory, not conspiracy August 14, 2019 National Grid is getting a kicking in the aftermath of last Friday’s electricity blackout. Potential explanations swirl around both social and mainstream media. The system cannot cope with too much wind-generated electricity. The Russians hacked into the computers. A puzzling aspect is that the initial shock to the National Grid was a very small one. [...]
John McDonnell has put a nationalist cat among the Scottish pigeons August 9, 2019 Labour has a problem – and for once it isn’t antisemitism. This time, it’s second-in-command John McDonnell, who this week defied party policy and threw a spanner in the constitutional works by declaring that he backed allowing Scotland to vote again on independence. Speaking at an event at the Edinburgh Fringe (a festival more commonly [...]
Listed litigation funders scramble to avoid Burford contagion August 8, 2019 Listed litigation funders have distanced themselves from Burford Capital today, after a short seller attack yesterday sent Burford’s shares on a rollercoaster ride. Manolete Partners and Litigation Capital Management (LCM) today pointed out how their models differ to Burford’s after their shares fell steeply yesterday in reaction to the short-seller attack on Burford. Activist Muddy [...]
Evraz hails ‘healthy’ results despite massive drop in profit August 8, 2019 Miner Evraz released a set of “rather healthy results” today even as net profit dropped by more than two thirds in the first half of the year. Lower prices for vanadium and coking coal took a 22 per cent chunk off the company’s earnings before interest, tax appreciation and amortisation (ebitda). Read more: Sterling falls [...]