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Markets may be betting on the greenback to scale new heights, but chances are now is the time to go short, Adrian Zuercher, head of asset allocation for Asia at UBS, said on Thursday. The dollar has surged in the wake of Donald Trump's surprise election win in the U.S. and as the U.S. Federal Reserve surprised markets at its meeting last week by indicating it would likely hike rates three times next year, a faster rate of tightening than the widely expected two times. On Wednesday,  the U.S. dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, extended recent gains, touching 103.65, according to Reuters data, its highest since December 2002. The dollar index retreated to 102.97 at 10:43 a.m. HK/SIN on Thursday. But Zuercher said the gains may sputter soon. "We actually think the U.S. dollar is highly overvalued at this stage and particularly over the past couple of weeks," Zuercher told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday. "...

Synopsis [ edit ] A childless king and queen pledged to  St. James  that if they had a son, he would make a pilgrimage on his eighteenth birthday. They had a son. When he was twelve, his father died. When his eighteenth birthday grew near, the queen grieved over the thought of not seeing him for a year; she tried to put her son off, but when his consolations for her pretended causes did not work, she had to reveal the truth. He assured her that he would return. The queen gave him apples and told him that he needed a companion, but he should invite any prospect to eat with him, and then he should cut an apple into two unequal parts and reject anyone who did not take the smaller. He met three young men, each of whom also claimed to be going on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James, but the first two wanted the larger part, and the prince feigned illness to be rid of them. The third took the smaller, and they traveled together, having pledged that if one died, the other wo...

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named billionaire Carl Icahn, a vocal critic of what he calls government overregulation, to serve as a special advisor to overhaul “strangling regulations.” He also tapped Peter Navarro, an outspoken China critic, to head the White House National Trade Council, a new office that will oversee trade and industrial policy, in the latest sign he is moving ahead with plans to overhaul US economic policy. The 80-year-old Icahn, known as an aggressive, activist investor, will not serve as a government employee, will receive no salary and will not be bound by ethics rules requiring him to divest his investments. He said President Obama had crippled America’s business owners with what he says is more than $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork. “It’s time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities,” he said. Icahn is already...

Ghanaian singer, Vera Hamenoo-Kpeda, better known by her stage name MzVee, believes that sex is a powerful tool in the hands of singers, even those who have little or no talent. The fast-rising singer in a chat with  PlanetTV  urged ladies who want to go into entertainment to ensure that they were doing it for the passion and to be patient while at it as they could get stuck if they rushed things. She said,  ‘It sells definitely, 100%. It even sells when the talent is not good. It will sell you all the way .” MzVee clinched the New Artiste of the Year award at the 2015 Ghana Music Awards 

Gerard, a bright-eyed eight-year-old with closely-cropped hair, tucks into his meal, showing no signs of thinking about how very close to death he once came. The jovial little lad is one of Ivory Coast’s “cursed” children. Custom dictated that he should not live. Gerard’s mother died while she was giving birth — and the tradition of the Tagbana ethnic group was that her baby, deemed the work of an evil spirit, should be drowned. The child’s big break came through a tiny charity — a home called the Saint Genevieve Welcome and Transit Centre, located in the northern town of Katiola, the only one of its kind in the country. With meagre funds, it works to save “cursed” children from their doom. Set up by a Catholic priest, Germain Coulibaly Kalari, 54, the home today shelters 17 children aged between three and 14, two of whom are infected with HIV. “If a child’s mother dies while giving birth, or a child is born with a handicap, the child is got rid of,” Kalari said bluntly. ...

Argentine will end the year on top of the world, leading the way in the final World Ranking of 2016 from neighbours, Brazil in second. The Argentines therefore take the ‘Team of the Year’ title from Belgium, who they overtook at the summit in April 2016, and where they have stayed for the subsequent eight editions of the ranking. In all, La Albiceleste, won 10 of their 15 games in 2016, losing three and drawing twice. All other playing nations retained their spots in the top ten.

Finland’s Nokia Corp (NOKIA.HE) on Wednesday said it had sued Apple Inc (AAPL.O), accusing the iPhone maker of violating 32 technology patents. Apple sued Acacia Research Corp (ACTG.O) and Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc [GEGGIM.UL] on Tuesday, accusing them of colluding with Nokia to extract and extort exorbitant revenues unfairly and anti-competitively from Apple. Nokia’s lawsuits, filed in courts in Dusseldorf, Mannheim and Munich, Germany and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, covered patents for displays, user interfaces, software, antennas, chipsets and video coding. “Since agreeing on a license covering some patents from the Nokia Technologies portfolio in 2011, Apple has declined subsequent offers made by Nokia. “Apple also declined to license other of its patented inventions which are used by many of Apple’s products’’, Nokia said in a statement. However, Apple and Acacia did not immediately respond to requests for comment....

This is a sponsored post... I had dinner with my lawyer friend recently and our discussion took us to how the rate of divorce is drastically increasing in Nigeria. The most shocking part of that discussion was when she told me the reason for many of these divorces. She said in 3months, she had close to 9 divorce cases and 7 of them were because  THEIR PARTNERS COULD NOT SATISFY THEM SEXUALLY  and 1 case was because THEY BOTH WERE NOT COMPARTIBLE ENOUGH TO BEAR CHILDREN. She went on to add that, ‘do you know that many Nigerian women actually forgive their men for cheating on them and continue in the marriage, but almost No woman can survive sexual frustration for a long time?’. One of her clients who came to her for help and narrowly escaped divorce is a Lagos housewife by the name Chioma and here is her story in her own words. “We have been married for 7 years and I was nursing a pain which eventually turned my marriage sour. I and my husband had it going good for at...

A 36-year-old mother, Shanna Riddle Vandewege, who had tried so many times to have a baby was killed alongside her 3-month-old infant son, Diederick Vandewege. The mother and son were found dead with their throats slit at the family's home in Forth Worth, Texas, last Thursday night. According to People, the bodies of  the mother and her infant child were both discovered by the victim's husband, Craig Vandewege, after he came home from work Thursday. He immediately called the police, who have since ruled the deaths as homicides. The couple recently moved to Texas from Colorado before their child was born. Vandewage worked as a registered nurse and was on maternity leave at the time of her death. Vandewege's father, Mark Riddle said: "They tried so long to have a baby. She had three miscarriages prior to having one,". "A new mother, a three-month-old baby ... why? Why kill them? There's no reason." The victim's husband who is also the infant...

A former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), yesterday faulted the charge of alleged involvement in a $1.6billion Malabu Oil deal against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He said although the charge was irrational, he was prepared to make himself available to defend it at the appropriate time. He said he did not benefit in any way from the auctioning of Oil Prospecting Licence 245(OPL 245), popularly referred to as Malabu Oil Block. Adoke, in a statement, said he got requisite approvals from the former President Goodluck Jonathan to broker the settlement and execute the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement. The statement reads: “My attention has been drawn to the charges filed by the EFCC against me and other named individuals and companies in respect of OPL 245 Settlement Agreement involving Malabu Oil & Gas Limited and Shell Nigeria Ultra Deep Limited. “The charge of aiding the commission of ...

German authorities   on Wednesday   named the suspect in the Christmas market truck attack as Anis Amri, and offered a reward of up to 100,000 Euros (104,000 dollars) for information leading to his arrest. The 24-year-old Tunisian, who had three aliases and came to Germany in July 2015, is the subject of a Europe-wide manhunt as the main suspect in the attack, which killed 12 people and injured another 48. He was described in official papers as 1.78 metres tall, weighing about 75 kilograms with black hair and brown eyes. Amri was already under investigation in Germany on suspicion of planning a serious act of violence.

The Federal Executive Council yesterday approved a new policy that will see any whistle-blower being rewarded with as much as 5 % of recovered loot. Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, who disclosed this to state house correspondents, said the policy which was devised by her ministry, is to encourage anyone with information about corrupt practices to share it with the government. According to her, the policy is aimed at increasing exposure of financial related crimes, supporting the fight against financial crimes and corruption, improving level of public confidence in public entities, enhancing transparency and accountability in the management of public funds, improving Nigeria’s Open Government Ranking and Ease of Doing Business Indicators as well as recovering public funds that can be deployed to finance Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit. Adeosun added that vital information that can be sent in for investigation includes mismanagement or misappropriation of public funds and assets (...

Israel’s former president, Moshe Katsav, was   on Wednesday   freed on parole after serving five of his seven-year prison sentence for rape and other sexual offenses. Live television and radio broadcasts showed Mr. Katsav walking out of the Maasiyahu Prison, east of Tel Aviv, where about a dozen of family members and supporters were waiting for him. He hugged his wife, Gila, and entered a car that took him to his home in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi. His release came about an hour after the State Attorney, Shai Nitzan, said that the prosecution would not appeal the Parole Committee’s decision to grant Mr. Katsav an early release. Under the terms of his parole, Mr. Katsav would have to join a prison service rehabilitation programme. He would also have to stay under house arrest every night, from  10 p.m. to 6 a.m. , until the end of his parole period. The committee also imposed restrictions on speaking to the media and forbade him to hold a job positio...

No less than two-thirds of trafficked victims are women and girls while one-third of the victims of human trafficking are children, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC, said on Wednesday. UNODC Executive Director, Yury Fedotov, disclosed this on Wednesday at the launch of the 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons. According to a new report from the UNODC, the vast majority of all human trafficking victims – some 71 per cent – are women, girls and children. “Trafficking for sexual exploitation and for forced labour remain the most prominently detected forms. “But victims are also being trafficked to be used as beggars, for forced or sham marriages, benefit fraud, or production of pornography,” Mr. Fedotov said. According to him, the 2016 UNODC Global Report disaggregates data on the basis of gender and found that women and girls are usually trafficked for marriage and sexual slavery. “Men and boys, however, are trafficked into exploitative labour, includ...

The smell and taste of coconut typically conjure up images of tropical vacations. It is a peaceful, easy feeling and perhaps one of the reasons why its scent is often used in many fragrances. Eating coconut though is one of the best things you can do for your body. Not only does it taste great, but it also happens to be one of the best superfoods out there. It is full of fiber and antioxidants. Plus, it contains fatty acids that promote weight loss so if you are looking to shed some weight, add some coconut to your cooking. Coconut flakes, in particular, are a great way to add a little something extra to your meals in regards to flavor and getting that extra healthy superfood boost you need. Here are six ways to use unsweetened coconut flakes in your kitchen. 1. Coconut shakes Making a coconut shake with coconut flakes on top is a great way to have a healthy non-alcoholic version of your favorite libation. Take 2 ounces of unsweetened coconut milk, 1/2 cup of fresh pineap...

I was raised by a strong and powerful mom who still inspires me to stay strong even during my worst times. I have a strong dad too, but my mom has always been the person I turn to when I need to get that powerful advice. My cousin was raised by a weak mom (no offence auntie) and she is still unsure of what to do next and how to survive the rough times, albeit she is already 29. She says she lacks willpower like her mom and has no idea how to be independent and strong. Mother plays a crucial role in her child’s life. She can either help you become successful or bring you down when you crave support. While a strong mother empowers her child, a weak mom is always afraid to take a big step and show that gender is not a sign of weakness. Girls who were raised by powerful moms know what I’m talking about. Note: a powerful mom is not a rich mom. Here is what girls learn from their strong mothers: 1. Happiness is in your hands Do not rely on someone else for your happiness. You are the...