UK Unemployment Falls To 6% | ||
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The UK unemployment rate has fallen to 6% between July and September.
Pay was also up with pay including bonuses for employees in the UK 1.0% higher than a year earlier. Pay excluding bonuses for employees in the UK was 1.3% higher than a year earlier. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Probe heads towards historic comet landing | ||
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Darmstadt (Germany) (AFP) - The European probe Philae on Wednesday was on course to make the first-ever landing on a comet after separating from its mother ship Rosetta, mission control said. Philae ejected at around 0835 GMT, said Andrea Accomazzo, flight operations director at the European Space Agency (ESA). "We see it in telemetry," he said. Touchdown by the 100-kilogramme (220-pound) robot lab is expected around seven hours later.
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European Markets Are Sinking | ||
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European stock markets are falling after opening flat. Here's the scorecard: France's CAC 40 is down 0.42% Germany's DAX is down 0.72% The UK's FTSE 100 is down 0.19% Italy's FTSE MIB is down 0.79% Spain's IBEX is down 0.56% Asian markets are solidly up. Japan's Nikkei closed up 0.43%, touching its highest level in 7 years, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up 0.55%. US futures are down a hair: the Dow is 14 points lower and the S&P 500 is 2.245 points down. Today, there's big data out of Europe, with UK unemployment at 9:30 a.m. GMT and eurozone industrial production at 10 a.m. ET. Analysts expect UK unemployment to dip to 5.9% and that industrial production in Europe rose 0.7% between August and September. At 10:30 a.m. GMT, the Bank of England's inflation report is out: the quarterly update gives the central bank's view of the economic outlook and the hints of when interest rate hikes may finally begin. At 12:00 p.m. GMT there are mortgage application numbers from the US for the week to November 7, and after the close in Europe there's a speech from dovish Fed regional president Narayana Kocherlakota. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Japan's smartphone 'zombies' wreak havoc on the streets | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - When the lights change at the Shibuya crossing in Japan's capital, one of the world's busiest pedestrian thoroughfares, hundreds of people with their eyes glued to smartphones pick their way over the road. Despite being engrossed in the latest instalment of Candy Crush or busy chatting with their friends on messaging app Line, most manage to weave around cyclists, skateboarders and fellow Tokyoites. But the growing ranks of these cellphone addicts are turning cities like Tokyo, London, New York and Hong Kong into increasingly hazardous hotspots, where zombified shoppers appear to be part of vast games of human pinball. "Hey, watch it!" barks a middle-aged salaryman as a hipster typing on his smartphone slams into him during one recent Friday evening crush hour. "Incidents involving people walking or on bicycles account for 41 percent of phone-related accidents," Tetsuya Yamamoto, a senior official at Tokyo Fire Department's disaster prevention and safety section, told AFP. "If people continue walking around looking at their phones, I think we could see more accidents happening." It goes beyond being an innocuous inconvenience where both people apologise before continuing on their merry way. Tokyo Fire Department, which runs the ambulance service in the megalopolis, says that in the four years to 2013, 122 people had to be rushed to hospital after accidents caused by pedestrians using cellphones. As well as the vaguely comedic incidents of businessmen smacking into lamp-posts or tripping over dogs, this total also included a middle-aged man who died after straying onto a railway crossing while looking at his phone. - Tunnel vision - More than half of Japanese now own a smartphone and the proportion is rising fast, including children who customarily walk to and from school. Research by Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo estimates a pedestrian's average field of vision while staring down at a smartphone is just five percent of what our eyes take in normally. "Children wouldn't be safe in that situation," said Hiroshi Suzuki, manager of corporate social responsibility at the company. "It's dangerous and it's our job to make sure it doesn't actually happen." The company ran a computer simulation of what could occur in Shibuya if everyone crossing the intersection was looking at their smartphones. The results, based on a fairly average 1,500 people swarming over the road at any one time, were alarming: 446 collisions, 103 knockdowns and 21 dropped phones. Only around a third get to the other side without incident. That 82 of the 103 who fell to the ground managed to cling onto their precious phones tells its own story. Japanese media reported that around half of the 56 bodies recovered from the peak of a volcano after a recent eruption were found clutching mobile phones with photos of the deadly lava and ash on them. Apparently, they had thought it important to be able to show their social media friends what was happening than to try to save themselves. Suzuki travels to schools across Japan teaching children how to be responsible with smartphones through the use of cartoons. "We use the story of the tortoise and the hare," he said. "The hare shoots off tapping away on his smartphone, and then falls down a hole. We want the children to know they could be the hare." - Social harmony - Phone fidgeters dawdling along at snail's pace, forcing cyclists and pram-pushing mums to swerve out of the way have become such an irritant in Tokyo that public notices have started to appear warning offenders to expect "icy stares", appealing to the Japanese sense of social harmony -- assuming people look up from their phones in the first place. Smartphone apps activated by sensors that flash warning signs or display the pavement on the screen have also been developed in response to the problem. Tokyo is just one of the places struggling to cope with this very 21st Century menace. In China, an amusement park in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing has divided a pavement within its grounds into two lanes -- one signposted "No mobile phones" and the other "Mobile phone use permitted but all consequences are your responsibility." Recorded announcements on Hong Kong's subway network warn passengers in Cantonese, Mandarin and English that they are about to step onto an escalator. While in one city in New York state, there was even a bid to legislate against the use of electronic devices while crossing the road. NTT Docomo's Suzuki in Tokyo says despite the city's high density and huge population -- 35 million in the greater urban area -- there's no need yet for people to wear crash helmets when they pop to the shops. "I don't think we will see the need for that in the near future," he said. "But our message is that it could happen. We're all potential victims." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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West Bank mosque torched in suspected revenge attack | ||
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Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli settlers torched a West Bank mosque in an apparent revenge attack on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said, as the US top diplomat headed to Jordan to discuss the spiralling violence. Months of unrest have escalated in recent days, spreading from annexed east Jerusalem to the occupied West Bank and Arab communities across Israel, and raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising. In a televised address late on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered a raft of additional security measures nationwide to tackle escalating Arab protests. The pre-dawn arson attack on a mosque near the Jewish settlement of Shilo came after separate Palestinian knife attacks on Monday killed a settler in the southern Western Bank and an Israeli soldier in Tel Aviv. "The settlers set fire to the whole of the first floor of the mosque" in Al-Mughayir village near the West Bank city of Ramallah, a security official said. Police confirmed the incident and opened an investigation. Also overnight, a molotov cocktail was thrown at an ancient synagogue in the Arab Israeli town of Shfaram, causing minor damage, police said. The structure is not currently used for worship. The attack on the mosque came with Palestinian anger already running high after Israeli troops shot dead a protester in the southern West Bank on Tuesday. The death of the 22-year-old near Hebron came as troops tried to disperse about 150 Palestinians who were hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails at passing cars close to the Kiryat Arba settlement, the army said. Since the current round of violence began five months ago with the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers by militants, at least 17 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, according to an AFP count. US Secretary of State John Kerry was headed to neighbouring Jordan for talks with King Abdullah II that were expected to focus on the worsening unrest as well as the US-led campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Jordan, whose role as custodian of Muslim holy sites in east Jerusalem is enshrined in its 1994 peace treaty with Israel, has expressed mounting concern over Israel's actions at the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound. A campaign by far-right Jewish fringe groups to secure prayer rights inside the compound -- one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East -- has fuelled tensions that were already high because of Israeli settlement expansion in the city's annexed eastern sector. - New intifada? - Speaking late on Tuesday, Netanyahu said he had decided to "reinforce security measures across the country, destroy terrorist houses, implement a stringent policy against those throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, and fine the parents of stone throwers." He also blasted Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas for "inciting more violence". He was alluding to a speech Abbas gave to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of his iconic predecessor Yasser Arafat in which he vowed the Palestinians would "defend Al-Aqsa and the churches" against Jewish extremists. Nearly 10 years after the second Palestinian uprising (2000-2005) petered out, Israeli commentators questioned whether the surge in violence marked the start of a new intifada. But Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said it was too early to say. "We don't see the masses going out onto the streets (in the West Bank). What we do see in certain places is youths who are participating in popular terror, and principally, we are seeing lone attackers," he told reporters. "So what do we call it? It's clear there is an escalation, an increase in violence but what shall we call it? Let's wait and see." But he urged the public to be alert, warning Israel had to prepare for "the possibility of a further escalation". Israel has significantly increased the police presence on the streets in recent months in a bid to rein in the unrest, but has been unable to stop a growing number of attacks by lone Palestinians, most of them in Jerusalem. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things You Need To Know In Markets This Morning | ||
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Five Massive Banks Were Just Fined $3.3 Billion For Allegedly Manipulating Currency Markets. UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, HSBC and Citibank were all fined more than of $3.2 billion by authorities in Switzerland, the UK, and the US this morning. The US And China Just Made A Landmark Joint Deal On Climate Change. China will aim for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, while the United States will strive to cut total emissions by more than a quarter by 2025, as the two countries try to drive through a new global climate pact in Paris next year. Samsung Just Cranked Up Its Legal Battle With Chipmaker Nvidia. Samsung has accused Nvidia of infringing several of its semiconductor-related patents and for making false claims about its products, counter-suing after Nvidia filed a lawsuit against the Korean company in September. Japanese Shares Hit 7 Year Highs. The Nikkei climbed 0.43%, after trading higher during the day, hitting the highest levels in 7 years. That's Because Of Snap Election Rumours In Japan. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may call an emergency election to justify delaying or scrapping the second sales tax hike planned for the country. eBay Admits It Banned A Whistleblower Warning Shoppers About Fake Products. When a consumer watchdog organization alerted eBay that it had found hundreds of counterfeits on the site, eBay blocked the whistleblower's accounts and removed its comments warning people about fake products. UK Unemployment And European Industrial Production Are Coming. They're at 9.30 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET respectively, with economists expecting a 0.7% jump in industrial production and UK unemployment to fall to 5.9%. Shell Says It's Focused On Deep Water Oil Projects In Mexico. Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world's largest oil companies, is most interested in new oil and gas projects in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico following a major sector opening finalized earlier this year, a top executive said on Tuesday. Volvo Is Reportedly Cutting 3,000 Staff. Swedish truck maker Volvo will cut around 3,000 staff as part of a savings plan to boost profitability, business daily Dagens Industri said on Tuesday. The Bill For Shutting Nuclear Plants Will Hit $100 Billion. According to the Financial Times, the international bill for winding down the world's nuclear power plants will hit $100 billion in the next 25 years.
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Take A Look At The Ludicrous Transcripts From The Massive Currency Trading Manipulation Investigation | ||
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Five massive banks just got slammed with $3.4 billion in fines by regulators in three countries, after a lengthy probe over accusations that traders had tried to manipulate currency markets. UBS, the Royal Bank of Scotland, JP Morgan, HSBC, and Citibank were all fined more than $3.2 billion by authorities in Switzerland, the UK, and the US this morning. Here's how that breaks down:
For each bank, this is the combined charge from the three regulators, according to Bloomberg.
It's the biggest set of charges ever levied by British financial regulators, and all the banks listed co-operated with the investigation. Here's what Britain's FCA said that they were charged for:
According to the FCA, the fines would have been 30% higher if the banks listed hadn't co-operated with the investigations. An investigation into Barclays, one of the large banks notably not mentioned in the list, is still ongoing. These banks and plenty of others have been reporting that they've set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to prepare for these charges, which have been a long time coming. Jakub Lichwa at Daiwa Capital Markets warns that it's not all over yet in a note this morning: In addition, we note that there are 2 further agencies – the US Securities Commission and the Federal Reserve – which have still not announced settlements and therefore the ultimate extent of losses of this FX probe could well be higher depending on the outcome of these investigations. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also published some of the ludicrous transcripts from the investigation alongside their fines. You can take a look at them here. RBS is the first bank to report that it's reviewing the conduct of some staffers still at the bank: it's got 50 former and current employees under investigation. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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