Skyscanner sold to China travel firm Ctrip in £1.75bn deal www.bbc.com

Skyscanner, the UK-based travel search business, has been bought by Ctrip, China's biggest online travel firm.
The deal values Skyscanner at about £1.4bn ($1.75bn).
The firm, which has its headquarters in Edinburgh, is available in more than 30 languages, with about 60 million monthly active users.
It was set up to let users compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels, and rental cars.
Skyscanner said it would continue to run independently, with the same management team.
'Powerful technology'
Ctrip was founded in 1999 and is one of China's best-known travel businesses.
The deal would "strengthen long-term growth drivers for both companies," said James Jianzhang Liang, co-founder and executive chairman of Ctrip.
"Skyscanner will complement our positioning at a global scale and Ctrip will leverage our experience, technology and booking capabilities to Skyscanner's," he added.
Skyscanner was set up in 2003, and co-founder and chief executive Gareth Williams said the deal took his firm closer to its goal "of making travel search as simple as possible for travellers around the world".
"Ctrip and Skyscanner share a common view - that organizing travel has a long way to go to being solved. To do so requires powerful technology and a traveller-first approach," Mr Williams said.
The sale comes about a year after Skyscanner announced a fresh round of investment to help it expand. Its backers include investment firm Sequoia as well as the Malaysian government's strategic investment fund, Yahoo Japan and fund manager Artemis.

Hollywood Star Steven Seagal Eyes Investment in Russian IT Firm www.themoscowtimes.com

American actor Steven Seagal has offered to invest in Russian IT company Galaktika, the Vedomosti newspaper reported Wednesday.

BRICS bank plans $2.5bn in loans for emerging economies in 2017 www.rt.com

The BRICS' New Development Bank (NDB) is to allocate $2.5 billion in loans to member states next year. In 2016 the bank provided over $1.5 billion in financial assistance.
Headquartered in Shanghai, the BRICS bank was founded in 2014 by China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa and officially opened for business a year later. The goal of the bank, with an initial authorized capital of $100 billion, is to fund sustainable development infrastructure projects in emerging economies.

Samsung Group, pension fund offices raided in growing South Korea scandal www.reuters.com

South Korean prosecutors raided the offices of Samsung Group on Wednesday, a prosecution official said, after media reports of alleged links with a confidante of President Park Geun-hye who has been indicted in an influence-peddling scandal.

Prosecutors also raided South Korea's largest pension fund, the National Pension Service (NPS), an NPS spokeswoman said. The Yonhap news agency reported that investigators were probing NPS's decision to approve the $8 billion merger of Samsung C&T Corp and Cheil Industries last year.

The raids signaled that prosecutors are expanding their investigation into allegations of influence-peddling in the corruption scandal that has rocked Park's presidency over the relationship between the government and big businesses.

NPS, the world's third-largest pension fund, has come under scrutiny by the media and civic groups over its approval as a major shareholder of the merger between two affiliates of Samsung Group, South Korea's largest family-run conglomerate.

Its backing was seen as crucial to the success of the merger and some South Korean media reports said its approval came under mysterious circumstances.

A Samsung Group spokeswoman confirmed prosecution officials had visited the group's headquarters but she could not provide further details. The NPS spokeswoman declined to give further details.

Prosecutors raided four locations - the NPS headquarters, NPS Investment Management office headquarters, Samsung Group offices and the office of a former NPS investment management official - said a prosecution official who was not authorized to speak to the media and declined to be identified.

Park and her confidante, Choi Soon-sil, are under investigation for allegedly improperly pressuring major conglomerates, including the Samsung Group, to raise funds for foundations that backed Park's policy of promoting the cultural and sports communities.

"DRAWBACKS TO BUSINESS"

Lee Young-ryeol, the senior prosecutor directing the probe, said on Sunday 53 conglomerates, "fearing direct and indirect drawbacks to business activities such as tax audits", were "coerced to contribute funds" to the foundations.

Park Ju-gun, head of research firm CEO Score, said there was little surprise that prosecutors were now seeking evidence in Samsung Group offices about how the merger may have been influenced by the conglomerate's contributions to the foundations.

The merger of the Samsung affiliates was approved by shareholders in July 2015 and prosecutors said the two foundations involved were set up in the following six months.

"This was expected. Due to the circumstances in this case, prosecutors cannot help but be suspicious about the genuine intent behind the donation, such as the timing," CEO Score's Park said.

President Park, through her lawyer, has pushed back on a request by prosecutors to question her about the case, potentially the first time a sitting South Korean president would be interrogated in a criminal case.

Park, who's five-year term ends in February 2018, has resisted calls to resign but has apologized twice, saying she only sought to benefit the economy and not herself, but acknowledges carelessness in her ties with Choi.

However, the growing calls for her to resign and Park's virtual withdrawal from public activities has left a worrying power vacuum in South Korea.

Choi and former presidential aide An Chong-bum were indicted on Sunday and charged with abuse of power, a major blow to the president's fight for political survival.

NPS has defended its decision in the face of criticism that the deal helped the Samsung Group family to cement control of the merged firms at the expense of other shareholders.

"The reason we approved the merger was due to taking a comprehensive view of the merger's synergy effect and potential for stock value increase," it said in a statement last week.

There were "special circumstances" where NPS-owned stakes in both firms were valued at a similar amount, it said. The size of NPS' combined stakes in both firms was about 2.4 trillion won ($2.05 billion), or 3 percent of NPS' domestic stock portfolio.

However, according to records of the NPS Investment Office committee's decision to back the merger in July 2015, acquired by an opposition lawmaker and seen by Reuters, the NPS had calculated a merger ratio of 1:0.46 of Cheil Industries shares to Samsung C&T shares, based on its valuations of the two firms.

This differed from Samsung Group's proposed ratio of 1:0.35, which the NPS committee noted was comparatively unfavorable to Samsung C&T shareholders.

(Additional reporting by Cynthia Kim, Yun Hwan Chae and Ju-min Park; Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Stephen Coates and Paul Tait)

Twitter accidentally suspends its CEO's account www.cnn.com

Customers Against London-Based 'Double' www.themoscowtimes.com

Trump says US to quit TPP on first day in office www.bbc.com

President-elect Donald Trump says the US will quit the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal on his first day in the White House.
He made the announcement in a video message outlining what he intends to do first when he takes office in January.
The TPP trade deal was signed by 12 countries which together cover 40% of the world's economy.
Mr Trump also pledged to reduce "job-killing restrictions" on coal production and stop visa abuses.
But there was no mention of repealing Obamacare or building a wall on the southern border with Mexico, two actions he said during the campaign he would do as soon as he assumed power.
What is the TPP?
The massive trade deal was agreed in 2015 by nations including the US, Japan, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, but has not yet been ratified by the individual countries.
Its aim was to deepen economic ties and boost growth, including by reducing tariffs.
There were also measures to enforce labour and environmental standards, copyrights, patents and other legal protections.
But its opponents say it was negotiated in secret and it favoured big corporations.

During the US presidential election campaign, Mr Trump gave broadbrush arguments against the pact, and used plenty of colourful language.
In June 2016 he described it as "another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country". In another speech he referred to the TPP as "the greatest danger yet".
But while there was plenty of talk about "taking back control" of the US economy, there were few specifics.
Announcing the plan to pull out of the TPP, he said that the US would "negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and industry back onto American shores".
What else did Mr Trump say about his plans?
In the video message, Mr Trump said his governing agenda would be based on "putting America first" and that he and the new administration would "bring back our jobs".
Besides quitting the TPP, he committed to several other executive actions that he said he would take on day one.
He said he would cancel restrictions on US energy production. Last year, President Obama brought in the Clean Power Plan, an anti-climate change measure which aimed to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector by 32% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
The plan, already on hold due to legal challenges, would have restricted coal power plants and came up against strong opposition in areas where leaders said the plans would devastate local economies.
Mr Trump said: "I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs.
"That's what we want - that's what we've been waiting for."
What would the Clean Power Plan have involved?

Mr Trump, a real estate mogul himself, has been strongly opposed to business regulations throughout his campaign. He blamed them for stifling business. A month before the election, he said that if he won, 70% of regulations could be axed, but safety and environmental rules would stay.
Now he has pledged that for every new regulation brought into force, two old regulations will be eliminated.

Political leaders and commentators in Asia in particular have reacted strongly. Japan's prime minister said the TPP would be "meaningless" without the involvement of the US and the economist Harumi Taguchi said China could move in to fill the "void" left by the deal's collapse.
China continues to push alternatives - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP), which would include Japan, India and Australia, but not the US, and the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).
China's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would keep "pushing" to conclude talks on the RECP and warned against free trade agreements becoming "fragmented and politicised".
Malaysia's prime minister said it was President-elect Trump's right "to make the policy decisions he thinks right".
A spokesman for Canada's trade ministry said the government would continue to work on the TPP.
"We made a commitment to consult Canadians on the TPP and we will abide by that commitment," he told the BBC.

Russia sets up free trade zone with Syria www.rt.com

Fitch Downgrades Mongolia to 'B-'; Outlook Stable www.fitchratings.com

Ambassador hands over humanitarian assistance to North Korean side www.en.montsame.mn