LONDON (Reuters) - President Hassan Rouhani pledged on Wednesday that Iran will stand firm against U.S. threats to cut Iranian oil sales, and said Washington had not thought about the consequences of such a move.“The Americans say they want to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero... It shows they have not thought about its consequences,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by state news agency...Read More

(Reuters) - Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) premiered its first original series in India in a sheen of Bollywood glitter on Wednesday, upping the stakes in its battle with streaming rival Amazon Prime (AMZN.O) for a chunk of the country’s more than 1 billion potential viewers.The success of original U.S. shows like “House of Cards,” “Orange is the New Black” and “Stranger...Read More

Walkabout Resources Ltd (ASX: WKT) is fast-tracking the development of the high-grade Lindi Jumbo Graphite Project, situated in south-eastern Tanzania,to take advantage of forecast market conditions for Flake Graphite demand, with high ratios of Large and Jumbo flakes. We learned from Trevor Benson, Executive Chairman of Walkabout Resources, that they expect to get the mining license in the near t...Read More

Prices for hot rolled coil (HRC) in the EU have been largely stable over the past week with buyers holding back from deals, sources told Metal Bulletin on Wednesday July 4.The market was expected to remain in wait-and-see mode until the announcement of a preliminary decision in a regional safeguard investigation.The European Commission opened an investigation into 26 steel products in late March,...Read More

* Motion to block Commission’s Iran plan fails in parliament* EU’s top diplomat chairs key Iran meeting on FridayBy Robin Emmott and Alissa de CarbonnelBRUSSELS, July 4 (Reuters) - EU lawmakers gave approval on Wednesday for the European Investment Bank (EIB) to do business in Iran, overcoming a blocking attempt and keeping alive plans to save the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran that Was...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s Electoral Commission is preparing to find the official campaign to leave the European Union guilty of breaking election law during the 2016 referendum, according to the former chief executive of the group.Matthew Elliott, former chief executive of Vote Leave, said the Electoral Commission had concluded in a draft investigation that Vote Leave exceeded spending li...Read More

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Germany has told German car bosses that President Donald Trump would suspend threats to impose tariffs on cars imported from the European Union if the bloc lifted duties on U.S. cars, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday.Handelsblatt said Ambassador Richard Grenell told executives from Daimler (DAIGn.DE), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and BMW (BMWG....Read More

LISBON (Reuters) - Britain’s Supreme Court dismissed on Wednesday an appeal by Goldman Sachs for compensation from Portugal’s Novo Banco over a $835 million loan to Novo Banco’s bankrupt predecessor, Banco Espirito Santo (BES), which was carved up by the state in 2014.The decision, announced by the court on its website, sets a precedent that could help Portugal fend off other law...Read More

Italian re-rollers have increased domestic plate offers again this week after the previous price rise was reflected in a handful of transactions, sources told Metal Bulletin.Metal Bulletin's price assessment for domestic grade-S235JR heavy steel plate in Southern Europe was ?,?570-580 ($664-676) per tonne ex-works on July 4, up from ?,?560-570 per tonne ex-works a week earlier. The price rose ?,?1...Read More

The Chinese yuan's recent losses against the US dollar has pressured steel prices in Asia to move down, with continual drops for both flat and long steel products across the region.Traders in the region have dropped prices in a bold move to sell more cargoes before the currency further loses value. Some market participants are betting on more price drops, entering into bigger short-selling positio...Read More

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will meet with business leaders on Wednesday, as the leftist seeks to ease private sector worries after an election campaign in which he accused some tycoons of belonging to a “mafia of power.”Lopez Obrador is meeting the powerful CCE business lobby, which in March urged him to stop questioning major pla...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares traded flat on Wednesday as worries over global trade persisted, with sentiment towards semiconductor stocks in particular souring after Micron Technology was banned from selling chips in China.The pan-European STOXX 600 index closed flat with Germany's exporter-heavy DAX .GDAXI and the UK's FTSE 100 .FTSE falling both 0.3 percent.Trading has been choppy befo...Read More

Italian steelmaker Feralpi increased its crude steel production in January-June 2018 by 3.5% year-on-year, it said this week.Crude steel production was 1.29 million tonnes in the first half of 2018, Feralpi said, compared with 1.24 million tonnes in the corresponding period in 2017.Production of cold-rolled steel products in January-June was largely stable year-on-year at 489,000 tonnes.But hot-ro...Read More

Domestic prices for mesh-quality wire rod produced and delivered in Southern Europe have risen by ?,?5-10 per tonne over the past week amid supply concerns ahead of an expected preliminary decision in an EU import safeguard case, sources said on Wednesday July 4.Metal Bulletin's weekly domestic price assessment for mesh-quality wire rod in Southern Europe was ?,?530-540 ($617-629) per tonne delive...Read More

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran will remain in its 2015 nuclear deal only if its benefits are guaranteed by other signatories after the United States withdrew from the accord, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told a news conference on Wednesday.Rouhani said the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal was “illegal”. “Not the United States, not any other country would benefit from this decis...Read More

BEIJING/MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - Chinese conglomerate HNA Group [HNAIRC.UL] Co-Chairman Wang Jian died during a business trip in France on July 3 in what local police said appeared to be an accidental fall from a wall while posing for a photograph.Wang, 57, is regarded as the architect of an eye-popping $50 billion acquisition spree that saw HNA accumulate assets ranging from a stake in Deuts...Read More

BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. automaker General Motors Co (GM.N) said on Wednesday its second-quarter sales in China increased 0.7 percent to 858,344 vehicles compared with the same period a year ago.However, the second-quarter growth rate of vehicle sales in China eased compared with the January-March quarter, which saw an increase of 8 percent. The slowdown was mainly due to lean sales of Buick brand...Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - British officials are expected to meet later on Wednesday to discuss the case of two people whose possible poisoning is being investigated by counter-terrorism police, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said.The pair were found in critical condition from suspected exposure to an unknown substance near the southwestern English city of Salisbury where a former Russian spy...Read More

Prices for rebar produced and delivered in Southern Europe rose sharply by ?,?15-25 per tonne over the past week as mills pushed through price increases, sources told Metal Bulletin on Wednesday July 4.Metal Bulletin's weekly price assessment for domestic rebar in southern Europe was ?,?500-515 ($583-600) per tonne delivered on Wednesday, up from ?,?475-500 per tonne one week earlier. The assessme...Read More

Merkel struck a deal this week with her Bavarian allies to limit migrant entries through the border with Austria but she still needs to secure support from her Social Democrat (SPD) junior coalition partners.“I can’t promise that there won’t be disputes again about other issues, as this is usual when a government includes three parties,” Merkel told ARD television when aske...Read More