The United States remains the country with the highest annual military expenditure in the world, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). US military spending grew by 1.7 per cent between 2015 and 2016 to $611 billion, for the first time in six years. Military expenditure by China, which was the second largest spender in 2016, increased by 5.4 per cent to $215 billion, a much lower rate of growth than in previous years.
Swiss pharmaceuticals group Novartis says net income fell 15 percent in the first quarter, as it continued to adjust to generic competition for its Gleevec leukemia drug and stopped work on a hoped-for treatment for heart failure.
The Basel-based company said net income dropped to $1.7 billion in the quarter, compared to $2.01 in the year-earlier period. It cited a $200 million charge to discontinue RLX030, which failed to pass tests in trials as a treatment for acute heart failure.
Eric Olsen, CEO of the Swiss-French giant LafargeHolcim, has stepped down following an internal investigation into one of the company’s manufacturing plants in Syria. In 2013 and 2014, one of world’s largest cement company allegedly paid armed groups protection money to keep its Jalabiya plant open while the country’s civil war intensified.
“While I was absolutely not involved in, nor even aware of, any wrongdoing I believe my departure will contribute to bringing back serenity to a company that has been exposed for months on this case,” Olsen said on Monday, who will leave on July 15, two years after becoming chief executive and taking responsibility for implementing the €41bn merger between the French company Lafarge and its Swiss rival Holcim in 2015.
Swiss Economic Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann had strong words for Credit Suisse bonus. Asked over the issue on Sunday by Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, he said that so-called fat-cat salaries for top bankers are stupid and divisive.
The minister, part of the nation’s governing seven-member cabinet, was commenting about payouts to senior managers of Switzerland’s second-largest bank, Credit Suisse.
Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old former banker who quit the Socialists for a remarkable tilt for France’s presidency, has won the country’s first-round vote, finishing just ahead of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. The French Interior Ministry’s final figures for the vote showed Macron winning 23.75 per cent of the vote, with Le Pen on 21.5.
Francois Fillon for the Republicans, the party of the Gaullist establishment, came third with 19.9 per cent of the vote, just ahead of far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon with 19.6 per cent.
One again, Switzerland again ranked No. 1 on the list, according to the 2017 Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2015-16, released by INSEAD, the France-based business school for the world. The research is produced in partnership with the Adecco Group and the Human Capital Leadership Institute of Singapore.
Essentially, the report argued that while tech advancements will continue to disrupt the workplace and displace jobs, new opportunities will also be created. High ranking countries share key traits, according to INSEAD.
Food group Nestle has confirmed it aims to grow underlying sales by 2-4% this year after growth slowed in the first quarter, hit by weak consumer demand for packaged foods and a deflationary environment.
Underlying "organic" sales growth at the maker of Buitoni pasta and Maggi soups slowed to 2.3 percent in the first quarter, from 3.9 percent in the year-ago period that included one more trading day and an earlier Easter, the group based in Vevey on Lake Geneva said in a statement on Thursday.
This was in line with forecasts in a Reuters poll. Consumer goods groups face challenges as increasingly health-conscious consumers often prefer fresh produce to packaged foods.
In a recent survey of US college students, commissioned by LendEDU, a consumer finance comparison site, only 8% of respondents said they didn’t have a Netflix account. That means that a whopping 92% have Netflix. Additionally, 5% said they used their current or ex-girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s account. Meanwhile, only 34% said they have their own account.
“Netflix continues to be the clear leader in online streaming, but is hurting in one key performance metric,” the report said. Netflix is also the most popular video platform among teens, beating out both YouTube and cable TV in a recent Piper Jaffray survey.
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