Bloomberg Global banks’ withdrawal from Latin America since the global financial crisis could undermine domestic banking systems just as the region requires substantial funding to ignite economic growth, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund. Brazil’s Banco Bradesco SA in July announced the $5.2 billion purchase of HSBC Holdings Plc’s local retail unit, raising concern in the local ...

AFP Groupon, the daily deals ecommerce operator which has been struggling since a hot public share offering, said it received a $250 million investment from a private investment fund. Groupon said it would use the cash infusion from Atairos to boost share repurchases and to revive growth. “Our partnership with Atairos will help accelerate our transformation while better positioning us ...

AFP Wall Street stocks opened modestly lower on Monday as Virgin America surged more than 40 percent on news it agreed to be acquired by Alaska Airlines in a $4 billion deal. Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 17.771.20, down 21.55 points (0.12 percent). The broad-based S&P 500 shed 2.76 (0.13 percent) to 2,070.02, while ...

Bloomberg Mexican conglomerate Alfa SAB is back in talks to take over Pacific Exploration & Production Corp. with a sweetened bid for the beleaguered Colombian oil producer, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Shares of Pacific jumped. A strong offer by Alfa could win support from Pacific’s biggest investor, O’Hara Administration Co., and the producer’s management, the people ...

Lesbos / AFP Three boats shipped scores of migrants from the Greek islands to Turkey on Monday, the first wave of deportations under a hotly-contested pact to ease Europe’s worst migration crisis since World War II. As the sun rose over the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios, some 200 migrants, mainly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, were ferried back across ...

DUBAI / AFP The US Navy says it has seized a weapons shipment in the Arabian Sea from Iran likely heading to war-torn Yemen. The Navy said in a statement on Monday that the USS Sirocco on March 28 intercepted and seized the shipment of weapons hidden aboard a small dhow, a type of ship commonly used in the Persian ...

Jerusalem / AFP Israeli security forces demolished the West Bank homes of three Palestinians early Monday who killed an Israeli officer and seriously wounded another in Jerusalem in February, the military said. In February’s attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City, according to Israeli authorities, three Palestinian men in their early 20’s drew rifles and knives and attacked two female officers during ...

Gaza City / AFP Gaza fishermen have begun working further off the coast after Israel relaxed restrictions for the first time in a decade but said on Monday that the measure was not nearly enough. Palestinian boats working in the southern part of Gaza Strip started to fish as far as nine nautical miles off the coast on Sunday, the ...

BAGHDAD / AP Militants unleashed on Monday a wave of suicide attacks across Iraq, killing at least 29 people and wounding dozens, officials said. The deadliest attack took place in the southern province of Dhi Qar when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a restaurant that is frequented by Shiite paramilitary militia fighters, killing at least 14 people. Another ...

Beirut / AFP Air strikes have killed several Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front members including its spokesman and regime forces have retaken a strategic town from the IS group in the latest setbacks for extremists in Syria. Abu Firas Al Suri, whose real name was Radwan Nammous, fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan where he met Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and ...