Warren Buffett has reported a $1.14 billion loss at Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in the first quarter, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said. That marked the company’s first net loss since 2009. The loss was caused by new accounting-rule changes, which the Oracle of Omaha had predicted would cause nightmares. The rules require Berkshire to report unrealised gains or losses in equity investments in net income. The “requirement will produce some truly wild and capricious swings in our GAAP bottom line,” Buffett warned in his annual letter to shareholders released in February. The…
Read MoreMonth: May 2018
Arsene Wenger: I’m getting more job offers than expected
Arsene Wenger says he has had plenty of job offers since announcing his plans to leave Arsenal this summer, but he remains no closer to deciding where he will go after his tenure ends. The Frenchman deflected more questions about who his successor at Arsenal should be, but agreed that the club should try to make an appointment well before the World Cup starts in June. Wenger’s 22-year-reign as Gunners boss is in its final week, with only two Premier League games at Leicester and Huddersfield left. The 68-year-old has…
Read MoreOil prices fall as market awaits Donald Trump decision on Iran
Oil prices retreated from 3-1/2 year highs on Tuesday as investors waited on an announcement by President Donald Trump on whether the United States will reimpose sanctions on Iran, according to Reuters reports. Should Trump pull the United States out of a multi-nation agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program, Iranian crude exports could be hit, adding to tightness in the oil market, which is coming back into balance after years of glut. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 had dropped 78 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $69.95 a barrel…
Read MoreSenator Saraki: National Assembly to pass 2018 budget next week
Senate President Bukola Saraki says the national assembly will pass the 2018 appropriation bill next week. This contradicts the earlier date the house of representatives set for the passage of the budget. Last week, Abdulrazaak Namdas, spokesman of the house of representatives, said the budget would be laid before the lawmakers on Tuesday and passed within the week. “By next week (ie. this week), everything about the budget will be treated and passed,” he had said. But addressing state house correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari alongside Yakubu Dogara,…
Read MoreBuhari begins 4-day medical vacation in UK
President Muhammadu Buhari will on Tuesday begin a four-day trip to the United Kingdom on medical vacation, the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu said. The presidential aide disclosed this in Abuja on Monday. “In the course of the technical stop-over for aircraft maintenance in London on his way back from Washington last week, the President had a meeting with his doctor. “The doctor requested the President to return for a meeting which he agreed to do.” Shehu stated that the President, who will return…
Read MoreFormer President Lula vows to contest Brazil’s elections from jail
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he is “very much a candidate” in the elections coming up in October, despite having been in jail for a month, the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported Monday. The message was given by theologian Leonardo Boff, who visited Lula in prison in the southern city of Curitiba. Lula will only renounce his candidacy if it is proven that he owned a penthouse which he allegedly renovated in a corrupt deal, according to Boff. “He wants to return to power to…
Read MoreSenator Sani: No APC congress in Kaduna
The senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, has observed that the All Progressives Congress, APC, ward congress slated for Saturday did not take place in Kaduna. Making his observation at Abuja, venue of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Press Freedom Awards on Saturday night, he said, “I am just coming back from my state where party congresses was supposed to hold, there was no party congress.” In a paper entitled; “Good Governance and Nation Building”, the lawmaker said that there was an onslaught against freedom of the press. He…
Read MoreBudget Office: Federal government spent N4.3 trillion to service debt in three years
The Federal Government spent a total of N4.3tn to service the country’s debt obligations to local and foreign debtors between January 2015 and September 2017, figures obtained from the Budget Office on Friday showed. The figures are computed from the quarterly budget implementation report prepared by the Budget Office. An analysis of the report by newsmen showed that the sum of N1.06tn was used to service debt in 2015. The amount rose to N1.31tn in 2016 before hitting N1.54tn in 2017. A breakdown of the N1.06tn debt service amount for…
Read MoreLebanon holds general election for first time in nine years
Polls have opened in Lebanon, kicking off the country’s first parliamentary elections in nearly a decade. Sunday’s vote sees 583 candidates compete for the 128 seats in parliament through 77 rival lists, spread across 15 districts. Under the terms of a new electoral law that introduced proportional representation, voters will be casting two votes; one for a list of candidates and one for a single preferred candidate. There are up to 3.8 million registered voters in the country. More than 700,000 voters will be casting their ballots for the first…
Read MoreTony Bellew beats David Haye again in British heavyweight grudge match
Tony Bellew appeared to have all but ended David Haye’s career with a fifth-round stoppage win over his rival British heavyweight in their grudge re-match in London on Saturday. The pair had become as well-known for their pre-match dust-ups and verbal taunts as their boxing but there was no denying the comprehensive manner of Bellew’s second successive victory over the 37-year-old Haye. “Tony boxed a great fight,” Haye told Sky Box Office. “He did some really clever stuff. He boxed really good. I didn’t, plain and simple. He had a…
Read More