ICELAND'S TRULY WORLD FIRST

Iceland puts onus on companies to pay gender equal wages.

IN A WORLD FIRST, Iceland has introduced a new law requiring employers to prove they are  paying men and women the same wage for doing the same work, or face fines.

As of next January, companies in  Iceland must prove, with proper documentation carried out regularly, that they are paying gender equal wages.

The country's biggest bank Landsbankinn, nationalised in 2008 during the country's financial collapse, has already begun complying with the law.

Elisabet Bjornsdottir, 34, who works in the bank's treasury department, says she's never experienced any discrimination  vis-a-vis her male counterparts, in a country that is already among world's best performers in terms of gender equality.

But ''that's one of the fundamental reasons why we need this law, because it's not something that you can easily feel or see. You can maybe have a feeling   -but it's really hard to prove,'' she said.

While Iceland has had a law mandating equal pay for men and women since 1961, the new law puts the onus on the employer.

It's no longer up to an employee to prove that they are being discriminated against, but rather, the employer must prove -in the event of the wage gap- that gender has nothing to do with it.

Concretely, employers will have to evaluate, at regular intervals, the requirements for a job position and each employee's ability to fulfill them.

The process must be documented, taking into account objective criteria, and carried out transparently.

[Agencies].

SAMSUNG ELEC UNVEILS RECORD PROFIT

SEOUL : Samsung Electronics Co Ltd announced on Wednesday its first stock split and said it expects demand for semiconductors-

To remain strong in 2018, as it posted record annual profit driven by so-called memory chip ''super-cycle''.

The tech giants stock split is the latest in a series of moves to bolster shareholder returns, including  5.8 trillion won [$5.4 billion]  in annual dividends and  9.2 trillion won in share buybacks and cancellations in 2017.

The firm's largesse has encouraged investors to hod shares despite concerns that the memory business may be peaking.

The stock split will open the door to retail investors, as well, boosting liquidity and underpinning valuations, analysts said.

''The stock split comes as a surprise to me,'' said  Kim Sung-soo, a fund manager at L.S. Asset Management who holds Samsung shares, noting that Samsung previously had shrugged off investors calls to split its shares.

''This will not have an impact on the company's fundamentals, but it will increase the supply of the stock and have a positive impact on shares.''

Led by a  stellar fourth quarter, the global leader in televisions, memory chips and smartphones brought home an annual profit of 53.7 trillion won [$50.2 billion]  in 2017-

Outstripping the previous record of 36.* trillion won in 2013.

[Agencies]. 

CHINA FACTORY EXPANSION SLOWS

China's manufacturing expansion slows again in January.

CHINA'S manufacturing expansion slowed for the second consecutive month in January as slack demand  hit the economy amid-

Efforts to control pollution and reduce overcapacity, official data showed Wednesday.

The manufacturing purchasing manger's index [PMI], a gauge of factory conditions, stood at 51.3 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics [NBS] said, compared to 51.6 in the previous month.

A new composite PMI index covering both manufacturing and services was released on Wednesday for the first time. It came in at 54.6.

''The manufacturing industry has maintained the momentum of steady expansion,'' NBS analyst Zhao Qinghe said in a statement.

The upcoming Chinese New Year holiday boosted manufacturing in consumer goods including agriculture and sideline occupation food processing, food and beverage, textile and pharmaceutical, Zhao said.

[Agencies].

SYRIAN GOVERNMENT'S SARIN?

A man holds the body of a dead child among bodies of people activists
 say were killed by nerve gas in the Ghouta, Damascus, August 21, 2013

THE HAGUE : Tests link Syrian government stockpile to largest Sarin attack.

The Syrian government's stockpile has been linked for the first time by laboratory tests to the largest Sarin nerve agent attack of the civil war, diplomats and scientists told Reuters-

Supporting Western claims that government forces under President Bashar al-Assad were behind the atrocity.

Laboratories working for the organization for the Prohibition of  Chemical Weapons compared samples taken by a UN mission in Damascus suburb of Ghouta after the Aug 21, 2013 attack-

When hundreds of civilians died of  sarin gas poisoning, to chemicals handed over by Damascus for destruction in 2014.

The tests found  ''markers''  in samples taken at  Ghouta and the sites of two other nerve agent attacks, in the towns of  Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib governorate on April 4, 2017 and  Khan-al-Assal, Aleppo in March 2013, two people involved in the process said.

''We compared Khan, Sheikhoun, Khan al-Assal, Ghouta,'' said one source who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the findings.

''There were signatures in all three of them that matched.''

The same test results were the basis for a report by the  OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism in October which said-

The Syrian government was responsible for the  Khan Sheikhoun attack, which killed dozens.

The findings on Ghouta, whose details were confirmed to Reuters by two separate diplomatic sources, were not released in the October report to the UN Security Council because they were not part of the team's mandate.

They will nonetheless  bolster claims  by the United States, Britain and other Western powers that  Assad's government  still possesses and-

Uses banned munitions in violation of the  Security Council resolutions and the  Chemical Weapons Convention. [Agencies].

CIA WATCHING RUSSIA

LONDON : CIA Director Mike Pompeo said he expects Russia will target US mid-term elections later this year as part of-

Kremlin's attempt to influence domestic politics across the West.

In an interview with the BBC, Pompeo said that North Korea might have the ability to strike the United States with nuclear missiles ''in a handful of months.''

He said that threat from Russia would not go away and asked if  Russia would try to influence the  mid-term elections later this year, he said:

''Of course.

I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that.''

''But I am confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election That we'll push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won't be great.''

Pompeo also said China was trying to steal US information. [Agencies].