Real Estate News
New era dawns as Suu Kyi's party strides into Myanmar parliament
01 Feb 2016 05:21:53 -0500Myanmar entered a new political era on Monday as Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy MPs took their seats in parliament, carrying the hopes of a nation subjugated for decades by the military. Wearing orange uniforms, lawmakers from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) arrived for their first day of work in the capital Naypyidaw buoyed by a massive popular mandate from November's election. Suu Kyi, the figurehead of Myanmar's struggle for democracy, entered the cavernous parliament building without making a comment.
South Africa's Telkom delays mobile unit break-even forecast
01 Feb 2016 05:11:00 -0500South African telecoms firm Telkom said its mobile unit would not reach break-even in March as it had forecast due to rising interest rates and cost pressures. Telkom, in which the government owns a stake of about 40 percent, launched the business six years ago to offset declining sales from its traditional phone business. Rising interest rates in Africa's most industrialised economy are expected to further squeeze consumers' disposable income, with heavy personal debt levels already high.
Suicide car bomb rocks police base in Kabul, casualties reported
01 Feb 2016 05:07:33 -0500A suicide car bomb rocked a police base in central Kabul on Monday, leaving several bodies strewn around the area, officials and an AFP photographer at the scene reported. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes during the Taliban's unprecedented winter offensive despite a renewed push to restart formal peace talks. "A suicide car bomb in the vicinity of a police base in Kabul city," interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish told AFP.
China arrests 21 over $7.6 bln Ponzi scam: report
01 Feb 2016 05:02:47 -0500Chinese authorities have arrested 21 people on suspicion of defrauding around 900,000 people of more than 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion), state media reported, after an online peer-to-peer lender turned out to be a giant Ponzi scheme. Ezubao offered investors annual returns of between nine percent and 14.6 percent on various projects, the official Xinhua news agency reported -- far more than currently offered by Chinese banks' wealth management products. The platform, launched in July 2014, had amassed more than 50 billion yuan by December, said the report late Sunday, citing police as estimating 900,000 investors had fallen victim to the scam.
China manufacturing index falls to three-year low: govt
01 Feb 2016 05:02:12 -0500Manufacturing activity in China contracted at its fastest pace in more than three years in January, government data showed Monday, underlining weakness in the world's second-largest economy. The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which tracks activity in factories and workshops, fell to 49.4, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. Chinese shares closed down as the weak figures weighed on sentiment, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 1.78 percent and the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on the country’s second exchange, retreating 1.04 percent.
China to execute two for killing British monk
01 Feb 2016 04:54:08 -0500China has sentenced two men to death for stabbing to death a British monk who founded Europe's first Tibetan monastery over a financial dispute, state media said. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, co-founder of Scotland's Samye Ling monastery, was found dead with multiple stab wounds at his home in the southwestern city of Chengdu in 2013. A court in the city sentenced two men, named in Chinese as Tudeng Gusang and Tsering Banjue, to death for the murders of Akong and two other men, while an accomplice was sentenced to three years in jail, the state-run China News Service reported late Sunday.
China sentences two men to death in killing of Tibetan religious leader
01 Feb 2016 04:10:18 -0500China has sentenced two men to death for the 2013 killing of a prominent Tibetan religious leader, state media said, in what had been one of Tibet's most closely watched murder cases. Choje Akong Tulku Rinpoche, who lived in exile in Scotland and became a British citizen, was among the first spiritual leaders to teach Tibetan Buddhism to followers in the West. One of those sentenced was Thubten Kunsal, who had been an artist at Akong Rinpoche's monastery in Britain between 2002 and 2011, the Chengdu intermediate court said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency on Sunday.
France welcomes Cuba's Castro in historic visit
01 Feb 2016 03:42:39 -0500Cuba's Communist President Raul Castro starts his official trip to Paris on Monday, his first-ever state visit to Europe, seen as a key step in rebuilding his island nation's ties with the West. The 84-year-old Castro is on his first official trip to the European Union since taking over from his elder brother Fidel in 2006, and has been in the French capital since Saturday for a private visit. France has led the way in welcoming Cuba back into the diplomatic fold since it restored relations last year with its longtime foe, the United States.
The frequent-flyer U.S. Congress: lawmakers work less in DC
01 Feb 2016 03:34:42 -0500By Susan Cornwell and Megan Cassella WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anyone seeking a table at Carmine's Italian restaurant near Capitol Hill on a Tuesday or Wednesday needs to battle a mid-week crush of Congress members and their staff. There are usually around nine events on a Monday, compared to as many as 30 on a midweek day, says Kelly Fitzgerald, Carmine's director of special events and catering. The mid-week crunch at Carmine's underscores a trend: members of the U.S. Congress have been spending fewer days working in Washington since the late 2000s, according to a Reuters review of congressional records going back 18 years. Lawmakers increasingly try to cram their legislative work into the middle of the week in Washington and then rush back home.
US double murder suspect held in Hong Kong says he is ill
01 Feb 2016 03:32:21 -0500A Chinese national arrested in Hong Kong and accused of murdering his two teenage nephews in the United States was taken to hospital on Monday after complaining he is "muddle-headed". Shi Deyun was detained by police at Hong Kong airport last month after arriving on a flight from Los Angeles. "I am muddle headed now... I know that my condition is poor," he told the city's Eastern Magistrates' Court.
