Business

TRIPOLI, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Ambassadors of France, Italy, Britain and the United States on Saturday welcomed the lifting of force majeure at Libya's largest oil field, Al-Sharara oil field, by the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC).

The ambassadors welcomed the decision to lift the force majeure and "immediately resume production at the crucial Al-Sharara oil field," said a joint statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Libya.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. regulators on Friday gave the green light to salmon genetically modified to grow about twice as fast as normal, but the company behind it may face legal challenges before the fish can be sold domestically.

09 Mar 2019; AFP: Australia has admitted it had not focused enough attention on its Pacific backyard but vowed to make "long overdue" amends, amid growing Chinese influence in the region.

"I think we would have to accept some criticism," Australia's minister for international development and the Pacific, Anne Ruston, told AFP on Friday.

"We have perhaps not put as much attention and effort into our own region as we should of."

08 Mar 2019; DW: The European Union should make concessions in Brexit talks to convince British lawmakers to back a controversial exit deal next week, British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday. The call came as Brussels and London struggle to reach an agreement to avoid a potentially damaging "no-deal" Brexit at the end of March.

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she, if elected, will seek legislation to break up the country's tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google, which she said "have too much power."

Writing in a post on Medium, an online publishing platform, the Democratic senator from the state of Massachusetts called the rise of Facebook, Google and Amazon "a great story  -  but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump and his top economic adviser on Friday defended the country's economic performance following a new report by the Labor Department that showed job gains plunged to 20,000 in February.

The growth in non-farm payroll jobs in February stood in stark contrast with the January number of 311,000, according to the report, which also said that the U.S. economy added an average of 223,000 new jobs per month in 2018.

LONDON, March 8 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May issued a message to the European Union on Friday saying its action will have a big impact on a crucial vote in the House of Commons next week.

May used a visit to a factory in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, to stress the importance of the part Brussels should play in seeking a deal on a future relationship after Britain leaves the EU later this month.

May will urge the more than 640 MPs on Tuesday to support her Brexit deal in a meaningful vote.

BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.5 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday.

The increase was down from 1.7 percent for January.

Food prices climbed 0.7 percent year on year last month, down 1.2 percentage points from January, according to the NBS.

Non-food prices gained 1.7 percent, the same growth as that in January.

The CPI in urban areas increased 1.5 percent, while that in the countryside ticked up 1.4 percent.

Washington, Mar 9 (AP) President Donald Trump will be making a significant request for border wall funds and seeking money to stand up Space Force as a new branch of the military in the White House budget being released next week, an administration official said Friday.

For the first time, Trump plans to stick with the strict spending caps imposed years ago, even though lawmakers have largely avoided them with new budget deals. That will likely trigger a showdown with Congress.

Washington, Mar 9 (AP) A World Bank arbitration panel ruled on Friday that Venezuela must pay US oil giant ConocoPhillips more than 8 billion as compensation for a decade-old expropriation dispute, roughly the same amount as the South American country's foreign currency reserves.

The bank's ICSID tribunal had ruled in 2013 that the 2007 expropriation of ConocoPhillips investments in two heavy crude oil projects violated international law.