Washington / AFP US employers defied a global slowdown and pumped up hiring in February, fending off worries about financial market turmoil and the oil industry crash. The Labour Department reported that companies and government authorities added a much better-than-expected 242,000 jobs last month, and the figures for the previous two months were revised higher. Steady growth in consumer spending ...

Bloomberg Puerto Rico’s main water utility may not have enough money to repay certain bonds if it needs to redirect funds to pay contractors, according to a filing on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s website. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority’s board on Feb. 16 approved an alternative plan to divert money to pay contractors if the agency fails ...

SAO PAULA / Bloomberg Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to battle his opponents in the streets in a defiant speech, hours after being briefly detained as part of a probe into a massive corruption scheme. Wearing a red shirt with his leftist Worker’s Party yellow star on his chest, Lula gave an emotional speech to supporters where ...

Bloomberg Argentina plans to mark its return to global capital markets in mid-April by issuing $11.68 billion of bonds to yield 7.5 to 8 percent, Finance Ministry officials told Congress while presenting a debt bill to clear the way for a settlement with most holdout creditors. After reaching a milestone deal with the largest holdout creditors led by billionaire Paul ...

BLOOMBERG Amazon.com Inc. is dialing back on the security built into its tablets. Bad timing. The Web retailer decided late last year to remove the ability to encrypt data stored on its Fire tablets, a few months before a battle erupted between Apple Inc. and the FBI over the decryption of information locked in a terrorist’s iPhone. As a result, ...

Bloomberg Slovaks are voting in a general election that looks set to hand a third term to Prime Minister Robert Fico, who’s pledging to raise living standards in the eastern euro-area member and protect its citizens from the European Union’s migrant crisis. Having presided over booming growth, Fico’s Smer party holds a strong lead in opinion polls. His support has ...

HAVANA / AP After two years of negotiations, Cuba and the European Union are close to sealing an agreement to normalize relations that soured two decades ago, officials said Friday. Cuban and EU negotiators said talks could be concluded for the March 10-11 visit to Havana by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. “We have covered all the chapters of ...

IDOMENI / AfP Some 13,000 refugees are crammed in unhygienic conditions on Greece’s border with Macedonia, officials said on Saturday, with all eyes on a key EU-Turkey summit on Monday that is seen as the only viable solution to the crisis. “There are 13,000 people here and nearly 20,000 in this prefecture, over 60 percent of the country’s entire refugee ...

Manila / AFP The Philippines said on Saturday it had impounded a North Korean vessel in response to tough new United Nations sanctions introduced in response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests. The 6,830-tonne cargo ship Jin Teng will not be allowed to leave Subic port, northeast of the capital Manila, where it had been docked for three ...

UNITED NATIONS / AP The United States is pressing the UN Security Council for the first time to confront the escalating problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers, which has undermined the organization’s credibility. The United States is the biggest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, and US officials said the Obama administration wants the council to send ...