US Looks To Build Philippine Coast Guard Maintenance Facility in Island Province on South China Sea

Dubai Crackdown Hits Iran's Economic Lifeline, Squeezes IRGC Networks By Negar Mojtahedi of Iran International The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline. Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices. The crackdown follows days of...

"More Pain To Come": Global Smartphone Shipments Plunge As Memory Crisis Crushes Budget Models Global smartphone shipments tumbled 22% in the third quarter as soaring memory chip costs forced handset manufacturers to scrap lower-priced models and focus on premium models, delaying purchases for working-class consumers, according to a new note by Loop Capital Markets. Loop Capital analyst John Donovan wrote early Tuesday that handset shipments totaled 251 million units in the quarter, down from 320 million a year earlier. The decline accelerated from 3% in the first quarter and 7% in...

Rate-Hike Odds Remain Low As US Producer Prices Print Cooler Than Expected In July Following yesterday's cooling (in-line) consumer price inflation data (driven in large part by energy deflation), US producer prices were expected to rebound modestly in July from a 0.3% MoM decline (headline) in June. Instead, headline Producer Prices were unchanged MoM (cooler than expected), pushing the annual change down from +5.5% to +4.7% YoY... Source: Bloomberg Core PPI (Ex Food and Energy) also printed cooler than expected (+0.2% MoM vs +0.3% MoM), dragging Core PPI YoY down to +4.2%... Final demand...