Author: Press Room

The writer is a director in the competition practice at Frontier EconomicsThe UK government wants to promote growth. The UK Competition and Markets Authority exists to promote competition. There was a time when these two goals seemed perfectly compatible. But the body’s recent veto on a merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard caused the latter company to complain that the UK was “clearly closed for business”.The decision is all the more remarkable given that the EU has now allowed the merger. Notably, the two authorities didn’t differ much in their market analysis — both were worried about potential anti-competitive effects in cloud gaming…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A man arranges produce at Best World Supermarket in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., U.S., August 19, 2022. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The debt ceiling deal that U.S. President Joe Biden and House Republican Kevin McCarthy agreed over the weekend adds new conditions to food aid that will impact one segment of the U.S. population specifically – GenXers with no dependents. The deal targets recipients of the Supplementary Nutrition Program, or SNAP, between the ages of 50 and 54, adding new requirements that they work 20 hours a week to receive the aid.…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Richard Teng, head of the Middle East and North Africa for crypto firm Binance gestures as he speaks during an interview with Reuters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, March 30, 2022. Picture taken March 30, 2022. REUTERS/Abdel Hadi Ramahi/File (Reuters) – Binance has appointed Richard Teng to head its regional markets outside the United States, at a time when the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has been facing scrutiny from U.S. regulators over compliance issues. Teng, who revealed his promotion on his LinkedIn profile, is already heading regions like Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He joined…

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Stuart Young, energy minister of Trinidad and Tobago, listens to a question while being interviewed during the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas, U.S., March 9, 2023. REUTERS/Callaghan O’Hare/ By Curtis Williams (Reuters) – The Trinidad and Tobago government accepted bid recommendations for six of eight onshore oil and gas exploration blocks, people close to the matter said on Sunday, setting the stage for awards to be disclosed as soon as this week. The Caribbean nation has pushed to expand exploration to counter declines in its oil and gas production. Gas and petrochemicals provide a large…

Source: AdobeStock / Kal’vānEthereum may be far younger than the traditional payments giants, such as Visa, but it has shown (yet again) that blockchain, in a single decade, developed into a force to be reckoned with. As a payment technology, blockchain has grown as much as to rival established players. Recent data from Coingraph has shown that Ethereum, for example, processed $3.01 trillion in transactions, as opposed to Visa, which processed $3.08 trillion.It is a testament to the growth in mainstream adoption of the nascent technology, which is often perceived – sometimes nearly exclusively – as a vessel for scammers, drug…

© Reuters. Investing.com – With 52% of the votes, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been confirmed as Turkey’s president until 2028, beating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who garnered just under 48% of the votes, in the second round. Speaking after the victory, Erdogan, now a ‘sultan’ in Turkey for 20 years, called on the people to put aside all debates and conflicts regarding the election period and unite around their national goals and dreams. Erdogan said they were not the only winners, and that the real winners are Turkey and its democracy. Kilicdaroglu, on the other hand, called the elections the…

CNN  —  President Joe Biden and House Republicans have reached an agreement in principle to address the debt limit and cap spending. The bill text was released on Sunday evening, but the work is far from done. Now leaders in both parties have to convince enough of their members to vote for the deal, which contains provisions that lawmakers on each side of the aisle don’t support. Read the bill text:

TransAlta renews share repurchase program

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)Getty Images Key Takeaways White House officials and lawmakers have reached a deal in principle to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and avoid default The deal, which still has to pass in Congress, raises the debt ceiling and introduces spending cuts Coming this close to the brink of a US default may have lingering economic consequences It’s a good time to reevaluate your portfolio to minimize risk This weekend saw an agreement between The White House and Congress to raise the US debt ceiling and avoid what experts forecasted as certain economic catastrophe resulting in higher…

man in red long sleeve shirt standing on gray rock formation during daytimeTulove Grede, Velebit Even though it’s been nine years since I paid off my $40,000 student loan debt, I still vividly remember that time. I lived as frugally as possible and went to extreme lengths to put as much of my paycheck toward my debt, and there were so many times during that period when the grind of it felt almost too much to bear. My wife and I were living with her parents with virtually no privacy, my car was an old beater, my clothes were old…