Rear admiral Anders Grenstad told the BBC that if the Swedish navy finds a foreign submarine in its waters, it will not hesitate to use weapons to force it to surface. Sweden has been trying to find an unidentified vessel for six days now. Most think it is of Russian origin.
3 hours ago
Labor unrest suppresses growth in South Africa.
The country’s treasury was expecting to see economic growth hit 3% this year, but cut the forecast down in February to 2.7%. That number has just been reduced even further to 1.4%, with labor issues—specifically the strikes in its mining and manufacturing sectors—to blame. South Africa’s GDP hasn’t grown more than 2% annually since the 2009 recession.
4 hours ago
Boeing raised its 2014 outlook—again.
That would make it the third time this year the airplane maker and defense giant has done this. And it has good reason, too—third-quarter profits came in 18% higher, year over year, to $1.36 billion. Sales in the company’s division that handles defense contracts were down 2%, however, due to reduced government spending.
5 hours ago
Drug makers join forces to develop an Ebola vaccine.
Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithKline—fierce rivals in the pharmaceuticals space—will set aside their differences in an effort get an Ebola vaccine out in the field in early 2015. Human trials could begin as early as January. J&J says it can have 250,000 does by May, with an eventual goal of a million.
October 22, 2014
11 EU banks will reportedly flunk their stress tests.
That’s according to Spanish news agency EFE, ahead of the European Central Bank publishing the hotly-anticipated results this weekend. The ECB promptly issued a statement that dismissed the speculation—”no final results have been sent to banks involved,” it said.
October 21, 2014
Chart of the Moment
Good luck trying to guess the cheapest time to buy your tickets.
October 22, 2014
Total selects a new CEO.
The French oil major held an emergency board meeting to choose a successor to Christophe de Margerie, who was killed in a Moscow plane crash. In fact, it selected two successors—board member Thierry Desmarest will become chairman and Patrick Pouyanné, head of the group’s refining and chemicals unit, will become CEO. De Margerie had held both posts.
October 22, 2014
The Washington Post’s legendary editor, Ben Bradlee, dies at 93.
Bradlee ran the Post newsroom for 26 years beginning in 1965. He oversaw the uncovering of the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon and the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the US governent’s secret history of the Vietnam war.
4 hours ago
Sunken Nazi U-boat found surprisingly close to US shores.
A German U-576 vessel has been lying next to a US freighter just 30 miles (48 kilometers) off North Carolina’s beaches for the past 70 years. Its 45 crew members died after the submarine attacked a convoy of merchant ships, and was sunk in the ensuing battle. Germany asked for respectful treatment, to “allow the dead to rest in peace.”