Market News

President Donald Trump said the US will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and will impose the “highest level” of sanctions on the country. The Iran nuclear deal was an agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers which are the US, UK, Russia, France and China plus Germany.

The leaders of the North and South Korea embraced after pledging to work for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-korean summit in more than a decade. The two leaders announced they would work together with the United States …..

In a three day visit to the United States the French President Emmanuel Macron urged the United States to reject narrow nationalism and engage the world. He said to US law makers that modern economic and security challenges must be a shared responsibility.

On Saturday, the United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles targeting three chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on 7th April. The western countries are blaming Assad for the Douma.

For the past seven years there has been a civil war with different groups trying to seize control of the country. The fighting is happening between the Soldiers who support the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Rebels who are against Assad being in power and the Islamic State (IS).

Trump’s administration has pushed ahead with plans to put tariffs on about $50 billion of Chinese industrial and hi-tech products. The move is aimed at forcing Beijing to address an entrenched theft of US intellectual property and forced technology transfer from US companies to Chinese competitors.

Ex-Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was detained in Germany after entering self-imposed exile from Spain. He faces up to 25 years in prison for organising an illegal secession referendum last year. Spain’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday that 25 Catalan leaders would be tried for rebellion, embezzlement …..

The President of Russia Vladimir Putin won a landslide re-election for another six year term. This victory will extend his total time in office to nearly a quarter of a century until 2024.

Prime Minister Theresa May gave 23 officials operating out of the Russian embassy one week’s notice to leave the UK, saying these individuals were effectively spies. She braced the country for further attacks. Her retaliation came after the first use of a nerve agent on European soil since World War II as a former spy and his daughter were poisoned.

Angela Merkel will serve a fourth term as chancellor as the two main German parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats will form a coalition to govern the country. This was an overcome hurdle to her fourth term which will bring more stability to the German economy. The result was 66 percent in favour to 34 percent against, a wider than expected margin.

Italy will go to the polls on the 4th March. The latest polls point to a hung parliament, where no one party or coalition has a majority to form a government. Should this happen, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, will call on parties to form a broader coalition of pre-election adversaries which could include the ruling centre-left Democratic Party and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

The unemployment rate in France dropped below nine per cent for the first time since 2009. The rate fell to 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year from 9.6 per cent in the previous three months according to national statistics office INSEE. This was the steepest drop since the 2008 financial crisis.