5: 

Goldman Sachs Reaches $5 Billion Settlement over Financial Crisis

Goldman Sachs has reached a tentative $5 billion settlement with federal and state investigators over the investment bank’s role in the 2008 financial crisis. Goldman was under investigation for lying about the value of the mortgage-backed securities it sold in the years leading up to the crash. The sale of toxic securities helped trigger the global economic recession. Under the terms of the tentative settlement, Goldman will pay billions in civil penalties. No one will go to jail.

Democracy Now

4: 

Turkey rounds up academics who signed petition denouncing attacks on Kurds

Turkey has been accused of violating academic freedom by rounding up university teachers who signed a petition denouncing military operations against Kurds in the south-east of the country.

Police have detained at least 12 academics over alleged “terror propaganda” after they signed a petition together with more than 1,400 others calling for an end to Turkey’s “deliberate massacre and deportation of Kurdish people”.

In a crackdown, condemned by the US ambassador as “chilling”, police are also still processing the paperwork of nine other academics who also face arrest.

The Guardian

3: 

Oil prices drop below $30 as global markets slide

Oil prices have fallen below $30 a barrel, a new 12-year low, amid renewed concerns of slow growth in China – the world’s second largest economy.

The oil price had briefly fallen below $30 previously on Tuesday.

On Friday, US crude futures were 5.45 percent lower at $29.50 per barrel, while the March Brent contract was down 4.4 percent at $29.52 a barrel.

Global markets sank on Friday after China’s Shanghai stock index dropped to its lowest level in more than one year.

The Shanghai Composite Index finished at 2,900.97, down 3.6 percent, its lowest close since December 8, 2014.

Aljazeera

2: 

Republican frontrunners clash in tense US debate

US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his top challenger Ted Cruz have clashed over Cruz’s Canadian birth and the business tycoon’s “New York values” during a tense debate.

With the February 1 nomination ballot in Iowa, a swing state coming into sharp focus, the debate on Thursday was a key one to influence voters, who will start to pick the party’s nominee to run for the White House in November.

Texas Senator Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta, to a US citizen mother and a Cuban father, accused Trump of bringing up his birthplace simply because Cruz was leading some polls in Iowa.

Aljazeera

1: 

NZ house prices a ‘catastrophic regulatory failure’

The council said it was shocked by a new global housing report that shows how extremely expensive New Zealand’s homes are in relation to people’s incomes.

The Fitch Ratings report shows house prices in New Zealand may have reached the absolute limit of affordability.

When linked to income, New Zealand’s houses were the least affordable of the 22 countries analysed in the report.

The council’s chief executive Connal Townsend was shocked by the report, saying New Zealand’s housing market was “infinitely the worst”.

“It’s a catastrophic regulatory failure.

RNZ