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Number 85 Broad Street, a dull, rust-coloured office block in lower Manhattan, doesn’t look like a place to stop and stare, and that’s just the way the people who work there like it. The men and women who arrive in the watery dawn sunshine, dressed in Wall Street black, clutching black briefcases and BlackBerrys, are very, very private. They walk quickly from their black Lincoln town cars to the lobby, past, well, nothing, really. There’s no name plate on the building, no sign on the front de... Read Full Story

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After the US Congress agreed a $7.5bn aid package for Pakistan this autumn, the Obama administration was taken aback by the seemingly ungrateful reaction of its intended recipients. Pakistani opposition politicians fumed about "colonialism" and "imperialism". Military men spoke angrily of insults to national sovereignty implied in conditions attached to the aid.But particular hostility was directed at US plans to spend over $800m on building a new, heavily fortified embassy in Islamabad, to b... Read Full Story

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More than a third of American youth of military age are unfit for service, mainly because they are too fat or sickly, the Army Times reports, quoting the latest Pentagon figures.Most of the rest are too dumb or have used too many drugs to qualify, the study shows.The report says 35% of the 31 million Americans aged 17 to 24 are unqualified because of physical and medical issues. "The major component of this is obesity," Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions, tells the Times. "We... Read Full Story

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WHILE the spotlight has been on the aggressive drive by the US government to flush tax dodgers out of Switzerland, bankers there are instead grappling with the loss of a much richer clientele: Europeans.Americans have made up no more than 5 per cent of Switzerland's $US1.8 trillion ($1.97 trillion) offshore-banking business. But European clients are steadily coming clean, spooked by threats of a crackdown by their own governments.Non-resident, or offshore, clients make up about a third of Swi... Read Full Story

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Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange.The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threatens the dominance of the world’s most heavily traded oil futures contract. It is the main contract traded on Nymex.The move reveals the growing discontent of Riyadh and its US refinery cust... Read Full Story