(Reuters) – Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp on Monday posted over a 12% drop in first-half cash earnings, as its margins continued to be squeezed by stiff competition in mortgage lending amid record low interest rates and certain impairment charges. Australia’s “Big Four” banks enjoyed a boom in home lending helped by low rates and a…
By Camillus Eboh and MacDonald Dzirutwe ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigerian airlines have suspended plans to ground all local flights due to the soaring cost of jet fuel just hours before the move was due to take effect, the airline operators association said on Sunday. The Airline Operators of Nigeria has been under pressure from the…
(Reuters) – The Algerian cabinet has authorised the national airline, Air Algerie, to purchase 15 new aircraft to open new routes to African and Asian destinations, Algerian State TV said on Sunday citing a cabinet statement. (Reporting by Moaz Abd-Alaziz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
By Anna Ringstrom STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – IKEA stores owner Ingka Group has extended the period it will pay around 12,000 staff in Russia by three months, through August, and may continue to pay workers beyond that, its retail manager said in an interview. The world’s biggest furniture brand in early March said it would temporarily…
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – The United States on Sunday unveiled sanctions against three Russian television stations, banned Americans from providing accounting and consulting services to Russians, and sanctioned executives from Gazprombank to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. The new sanctions are the latest effort by the United…
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union governments moved closer on Sunday to agreeing tough sanctions against Russia that include a ban on buying Russian oil, but scheduled more talks for Monday to work out how to ensure countries most dependent on Russian energy can cope. Ambassadors of the 27 EU countries have been meeting daily to…
LUSAKA (Reuters) – Vedanta Resources has offered to step up investment in Zambia’s Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) and implement several social responsibility programmes if it resumes control of the local firm, a company letter sent to the government showed. Zambia’s previous government put KCM into the hands of liquidator Milingo Lungu in May 2019, triggering…
By Nia Williams and Svea Herbst-Bayliss (Reuters) – Three months ago Mark Little, the chief executive of Canadian oil and gas major Suncor Energy, issued a mea culpa. In January two trucks had crashed at an oil sands mine in northern Alberta, killing one person. This raised the number of on-the-job fatalities at Suncor since…
By Helen Reid and Clara Denina JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The need to secure new sources of metals for the energy transition amid sanctions on top producer Russia has increased the Africa risk appetite for major miners, who have few alternatives to the resource-rich continent. Companies and investors are considering projects they may have previously overlooked,…
(Reuters) – British real estate firms Capital & Counties Properties and Shaftesbury Plc said they were in advanced talks on a merger that would bring such London tourist destinations as Covent Garden and Soho under one umbrella. Shaftesbury would own 53% and Capco shareholders the remainder in a deal structured as an acquisition of Shaftesbury…
