Russian central bank will intervene only if ruble under threat | ||
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Moscow (AFP) - Russia's central bank announced Monday that it would intervene to support the ruble only if there was a threat to the "financial stability" of the Russian currency, which has lost 10 percent of its value last week. The Bank of Russia said in a statement it would allow the ruble to evolve freely in the market, and that it would only intervene in the currency exchange "in case a threat appears to financial stability." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US wants China 'to do well', Obama says in announcing visa deal | ||
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Beijing (AFP) - President Barack Obama announced a deal Monday to extend visas for Chinese visitors to the United States for up to a decade, insisting he wants China "to do well" despite simmering tensions between the world's two largest economies. "The United States welcomes the rise of a prosperous, peaceful and stable China," Obama said in a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing. But he also walked a delicate line between reaching out to Beijing and raising thorny issues, following up the visa announcement with calls for China to free up its markets and tightly controlled exchange rate, and to respect human rights and media freedoms. Obama waded for the first time into the weeks of pro-democracy protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory of Hong Kong, saying that avoiding violence was a priority. "Our primary message has been to make sure violence is avoided," he told reporters, adding that the US would "continue to have concerns about human rights" in China. China has labelled the demonstrations illegal and has previously told Washington to stay out of the issue. The consular deal for both countries' citizens will see student visas extended to five years, with the validity of business and tourist visas stretched out to a decade, up from one year now. There were 1.8 million Chinese visitors to the US last year, Obama said, contributing $21 billion to the economy and supporting more than 100,000 jobs. "This agreement could help us more than quadruple those numbers," he said, describing it as an "important breakthrough which will benefit our economies, bring our people together". "I'm pleased that President Xi has been a partner in getting this done." China sends nearly 100 million tourists abroad annually and represents a growing and increasingly coveted source of high-spending visitors in destination countries. - 'Really big win' - One senior US official called the agreement "a really big win" and "a really big deal for the economy". Obama arrived in China earlier in the day on a week-long trip to press US priorities in the region but wounded from the Democrats' losses in the mid-term elections. He also faces heightened tensions with Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin is also visiting the APEC gathering. Relations between Washington and Beijing are often tense, with territorial issues, rights and markets regular bones of contention. "We look to China to create a more level playing field on which foreign companies are treated fairly," he said, adding the US was looking to China to "move definitively toward a more market-determined exchange rate and, yes, to stand up for human rights and freedom of the press". "We don’t suggest these things because they are good for us," he said, adding he would raise the issues in his meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. "We suggest that China do these things for the sake of sustainable growth in China and the stability of the Asia-Pacific region." APEC kicks off a week of high-level summitry that will see Obama and other top leaders travel next to Myanmar for the East Asia Summit, followed by G20 talks in Brisbane, Australia. China is hosting APEC for the first time since 2001, when it was still re-emerging as a world economic power. But in a speech Sunday, Xi underlined how much has changed by offering his vision of a continued rise by China that offers "infinite promise" to all. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Apple Just Fixed A Bug On iPhone That Put Undercover Cops At Risk | ||
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It sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn't: Apple's latest iPhone software fix will end a bizarre two-year period in which the iPhone's inability to reliably deliver texts to Android ruined a lot of people's lives. It also created life-threatening risks for police officers in units whose members used a mixture of iPhone and Android phones, a police source tells Business Insider. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. It will come as a huge sigh of relief to the thousands — maybe millions — of former Apple customers who ditched their iPhones for Android. Previously, anyone who switched from iPhone to Android faced a huge problem: unless you executed this complicated system of steps exactly right, your phone number stayed inside Apple's iMessage system and no one using an iPhone was able to reach you by text. The texts stayed trapped inside iMessage, undelivered. While that sounds trivial — iPhones didn't deliver some texts, who cares? — it was driving users insane. Since Business Insider began covering the iMessage fiasco, we've received 567 emails from readers complaining they couldn't receive texts from iPhone users after they switched to Android. That's more emails than for any other single issue Business Insider has ever written about. Of those people, dozens complained that they'd lost relationships because iPhone users thought they were being ignored. Employees complained they'd lost wages or promotions because their bosses thought they weren't responding to texts. Salespeople say they have lost clients and contracts because their customers weren't getting replies to their messages. One guy told us he nearly failed to sell his company because of iMessage screwups. The list goes on. Phones are supposed to do one basic thing: help you communicate with important people in your life. And for two straight years, since the introduction of iMessage in 2012, iPhone users were hobbled from doing that. Recently, an undercover police officer in North Carolina, in the US, told Business Insider that iMessage failures put his entire crew at risk. Here is a lightly edited version of what he told us. Obviously, we're keeping his full identity confidential: I have had a problem in the past with my captain not receiving my texts, though I would receive his. He has a Samsung. A week ago my department moved me from an iPhone 4 to a 5 s. Since then I have identified 6 persons, all police officers with Samsung phones who are not receiving my text messages. Talk about a safety issue. I'm making sure my wife is apprised of this issue so if I get smoked because I wasn't able to communicate my circumstances at my job she will own a big bite of Apple. Our primary communications are by portable radio. Bad guys know what portable radios look like so that's not an option in certain situations. Often, myself or my guys are tasked with going into businesses or other public areas to sur veil / identify bad guys. Communication to partners / support units on the outside is delivered by text 99% of the time. We often operate with other units where we will establish a group message and deliver orders / information, during active operations, by text. Not receiving these messages could absolutely cause problems. We also use texts to conceal our comms in the event that bad guys have a scanner with the frequency we are using. (Imagine sitting on your couch eating Cheetos and hearing on your scanner 'hey guys, everybody head toward Jim Edwards' house at 123 Maple St and let's blow the door off.' Not good for business.) The same info is often communicated by text and if I'm having issues getting these orders out, I may be leaving guys behind, creating a shortage at the destination and ultimately creating a safety issue. The issue has been a huge ongoing headache for Apple, too. The company is now the defendant in two class action lawsuits on behalf of Android customers whose messages were lost by Apple. One alleges that Apple deprived customers of the full benefit of their Android phones; the other goes further and alleges that Apple was basically wiretapping Android customers by diverting their messages and not delivering them. Apple has denied both suits. (Business Insider's coverage of iMessage is cited in both lawsuits although we had no prior knowledge of either suit being filed. We have, however, been asked by dozens of former Apple customers how they can join those suits.) You can unhook your Android from iMessage using Apple's instructions here. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Cabinet Member Eric Pickles Racks Up £500,000 Bill On Fancy Cars | ||
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Conservative government minister Eric Pickles has reportedly spend more than £500,000 on luxury limos and cars since 2012, The Mirror reports. Pickles does not appear to be practising what he preaches — he has previously told local authorities to cut travel costs to save money. The Communities Secretary listed "cut expensive travel" among his "50 ways to save" in a government announcement published in 2012. Labour members uncovered the travel expenses using figures from The Government Car & Despatch Agency, which sorts out the transport. According to their report, Pickles spent £247,775 on just two ministerial cars in 2012, £185,935 last year, and in the first half of 2014, racked up a bill of £103,091. It's safe to assume that Pickles' rides are a little more fancy than this one:
Jon Ashworth, the Labour party's Deputy Chair, calls Pickles' activity "seriously wasteful" and says the Cabinet member should be cutting costs, rather than splashing out on "luxury". But Communities minister Brandon Lewis defends Pickles' payments and claims "the number of cars since Labour was in charge has gone down." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things In Advertising You Need To Know Today | ||
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Get your week off to a flying start by reading up on the 10 things in advertising you need to know this morning. 1. Here’s the first UK TV ad showing someone using an e-cigarette. The ad, for e-cig brand VIP, follows a rule change last month allowing the depiction of “vaping” on TV. 2. Facebook is stealing a huge chunk of YouTube’s video audience. Early stats for the John Lewis 2014 Christmas ad — the most anticipated UK annual advertising event — show Facebook stole 40% of the online audience for the video, which would have previously belonged entirely to YouTube. 3. Check out the 33 quintessentially “British” brands that are not actually British. There are quite a few surprises in there, like Jaguar and Branston Pickle. 4. Google’s Eric Schmidt is the star of the latest ad for The Economist. The ad shows a businessman trying — and failing — to come up with a conversation starter when Schmidt enters the elevator he is standing in. 5. The NFL is getting trounced by the English Premier League in terms of global sponsorship deals. The Premier League may lag behind the top North American sports leagues in terms of total revenue, but it is outpacing its American counterpart on commercial revenue, according to data from Deloitte and IEG. 6. Variety has published a detailed feature on the decline of the cable TV market. The perilous situation cable networks are in was summed up by NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke last month who admitted: “The fact of the matter is, the next five or 10 years in basic-entertainment cable, as it relates to ratings, are going to be much more difficult than the last five to 10 years.” 7. Unilever is to advertise its corporate brand on TV for the first time, Marketing Week reports. The CPG company is looking to raise awareness of the sustainability work it is doing as part of its Project Sunlight initiative. 8. Machinima, the popular gaming-centric web video company, is rebranding, The Wall Street Journal's CMO Today reports. The company is set to unveil a new logo and the tagline “Heroes Rise.” 9. Sapient, the digital marketing company being bought by Publicis Groupe for $3.7 billion reported a 15% drop in third-quarter net income on Friday, Adweek reported. One analyst said the financials were “potentially alarming,” having come so soon after the acquisition announcement. 10. Bloomberg has explored the murky world of arbitrage in ad exchanges. The report details how anonymous traders are exploiting price discrepancies and reselling them on for profit, generating margins of as much of 60%. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Hong Kong Just Got Access To Shanghai's $3.9 Trillion Stock Market | ||
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Hong Kong (AFP) - A delayed trading link between Hong Kong and Shanghai's stock exchanges will start on November 17, the Hong Kong exchange announced Monday. The bourse connection -- which is expected to allow the equivalent of $3.8 billion a day in cross-border transactions -- had originally been slated for last month, but was unexpectedly delayed as pro-democracy protesters continued to shut down sections of Hong Kong. The link-up is seen as a key step towards greater financial liberalisation in the world's second largest economy. "The SFC and the CSRC jointly announced today that the launch of Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect on 17 November 2014 (the 'launch date') has been approved," said a statement issued by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) early Monday. The SFC is Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), and the CSRC is the China Securities Regulatory Commission. The joint scheme is expected to see volumes on both exchanges rise significantly, particularly Shanghai, but it is subject to strict limits in order to preserve capital controls in China, where Communist authorities keep a tight grip on the yuan currency. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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47 students killed in NE Nigeria 'suicide bomb attack': police | ||
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Lagos (AFP) - A suicide bomb attack killed 47 students and injured 79 others on Monday as they gathered for morning assembly at their school in northeast Nigeria, a massacre likely carried out by Boko Haram, police told AFP. "There was an explosion detonated by a suicide bomber," national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu said, referring to the attack in Potiskum in Yobe state. "We have 47 dead and 79 injured," he added, saying that the Islamist extremists were believed to be responsible. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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'Putin's Revenge': Russia And China Are Trying End The Dominance Of The Dollar | ||
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Russia and China just agreed to a second major gas deal, worth slightly less than the $400 billion agreement reached earlier this year, according to Bloomberg. The details of the deal mean Russia will supply China with another 30 billion cubic metres of gas every year for the next three decades through the Altai pipeline, a proposed pipe transporting the gas from western Siberia to China. Earlier in the fall, Keun-Wook Paik at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said this kind of deal would be “Putin’s revenge,” according to the Financial Times. Many analysts see the move as evidence that Moscow is pivoting away from a reliance on European customers and toward east Asia, where relatively rapid economic growth should prop up demand. It's also a political move, as relations with the rest of Europe have become increasingly cold after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the tit-for-tat sanctions between the European Union, United States, and Russia. The value of the Russian rouble has collapsed recently as the price of oil has declined. Russia's economy is dependent on oil, so the currency fluctuates with the oil price. The price declines in turn threaten Russia's ability to meet its budget obligations and pay debt. In sum, the country faces an economic crisis if it can't find new demand for oil and currency. The China deal, therefore, helps both Russia and China lessen their economic dependence on the West. It also helps Russia get around the economic sanctions imposed by the West because of the Ukraine situation. The Moscow Times notes: Curtailing the dollar's influence fits well with China's ambitions to increase the influence of the yuan and eventually turn it into a global reserve currency. With 32 percent of its $4 trillion foreign exchange reserves invested in U.S. government debt, China wants to curb investment risks in dollar. The quest to limit the dollar's dominance became more urgent for Moscow this year when U.S. and European governments imposed sanctions on Russia over its support for separatist rebels in Ukraine. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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