Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters Corporation (/ˈrɔɪtərz/) is a major multinational mass media and information firm founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and based in New York City and Toronto. It was created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of British-based Reuters Group on 17 April 2008, and today is majority owned by The Woodbridge Company, a holding company for the Thomson family. The company operates in more than 100 countries, and has more than 60,000 employees around the world. Thomson Reuters was ranked as Canada's "leading corporate brand" in the 2010 Interbrand Best Canadian Brands ranking. Thomson Reuters' operational headquarters are located at 3 Times Square, Manhattan, New York City; its legal domicile is 333 Bay Street, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario.

History

The Thomson Corporation

The company was founded by Roy Thomson in 1934 in Ontario as the publisher of The Timmins Daily Press. In 1953 Thomson acquired the Scotsman newspaper and moved to Scotland the following year. He consolidated his media position in Scotland in 1957 when he won the franchise for Scottish Television. In 1959 he bought the Kemsley Group, a purchase that eventually gave him control of the Sunday Times. He separately acquired the Times in 1967. He moved into the airline business in 1965, when he acquired Britannia Airways and into oil and gas exploration in 1971 when he participated in a consortium to exploit reserves in the North Sea. In the 1970s, following the death of Lord Thomson, the company withdrew from national newspapers and broadcast media, selling the Times, the Sunday Times and Scottish Television and instead moved into publishing, buying Sweet & Maxwell in 1988. The company at this time was known as the International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL).

Reuters Group

Reuters Group plc was a British multinational media and financial information company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was acquired by The Thomson Corporation in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters.

Reuters Group was best known for the Reuters news agency, which was the original business of the company. By the time of its acquisition by Thomson the bulk of Reuters Group's revenues came from the provision of financial market data, with news reporting comprising less than 10% of its turnover.

History

Beginnings

Paul Julius Reuter noticed that, with the electric telegraph, news no longer required days or weeks to travel long distances. In the 1850s, the 34-year-old Reuter was based in Aachen – then in the Kingdom of Prussia, now in Germany – close to the borders with the Netherlands and Belgium. He began using the newly opened Berlin–Aachen telegraph line to send news to Berlin. However, the telegraph did not extend the 76 miles (122 km) to Brussels, Belgium's capital city and financial center. Reuter saw an opportunity to speed up news service between Brussels and Berlin by using homing pigeons to bridge that gap.

Group

Group may refer to:

Groups of people

In science and technology

In mathematics

In chemistry

In computing and the internet

Other uses in science and technology

Other uses

Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Mokhtar Belmokhtar (born 1 June 1972), also known as The One-Eyed, The Uncatchable, is an Algerian leader of the group Al-Murabitoun, former military commander of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and smuggler and weapons dealer. He was twice convicted and sentenced to death in absentia under separate charges in Algerian courts: in 2007 for terrorism and in 2008 for murder; in 2004 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Algeria for terrorist activities.

Born in northern Algeria, Belmokhtar traveled to Afghanistan in 1991 to fight with the mujahadeen against the pro-Soviet government following the withdrawal of Soviet Union troops. There he lost his left eye while mishandling explosives. He later joined the Islamist GIA fighting in the Algerian Civil War and following that became a commander in the Mali-based Islamist Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In December 2012, Belmokhtar announced he was leaving AQIM and headed his own organisation, dubbed the Al-Mulathameen ("Masked") Brigade (also known as the al-Mua'qi'oon Biddam ("Those who Sign with Blood") Brigade). In January 2013 the Brigade took more than 800 people hostage at the Tigantourine gas facility in Algeria. 39 hostages were executed and one Algerian killed before the facility was recaptured by Algerian forces, who killed 29 members of the Brigade. The Brigade was listed by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in December, 2013.

Galleon Group

The Galleon Group was one of the largest hedge fund management firms in the world, managing over $7 billion, before closing in October 2009. The firm was the center of a 2009 insider trading scandal.

The firm was founded by Raj Rajaratnam, a former equity research analyst and eventual president of Needham & Company, in 1997. The New York headquartered firm was named for the galleon, a large sailing ship used from the 16th to 18th centuries in Europe.

Insider trading investigation

In October 2009 Rajaratnam and five others were arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud and insider trading. Rajaratnam pleaded not guilty and remained free on $100 million bail, the largest in United States history. He was indicted by a grand jury in December 2009 and found guilty in U.S. District Court on 14 charges in May 2011. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell to 11 years in prison on October 13, 2011.

Other former and current traders at Galleon were subsequently arrested and charged with contributing to the alleged conspiracy. Several former employees of the firm have cooperated in the investigation. As of January 2012 over fifty people have been convicted or pleaded guilty to date in the sprawling probe stemming from Galleon (not all of them Galleon employees).