The shift under way in global monetary policy is more subtle evolution than revolution. For all the talk about a pivot toward higher interest rates, conditions are likely to remain relatively lax for years to come in the economies that matter most. Central banks are unlikely to engage in new aggressive approaches to spurring growth and buttressing markets; the global ...

Facebook Inc investors celebrated the social media giant’s court victory in two major antitrust lawsuits by driving the company’s market value above $1 trillion for the first time. But a closer look at the judge’s decision reveals it may just delay the eventual reckoning. It is not an “all-clear” ruling. US District Judge James Boasberg granted Facebook’s request to dismiss ...

French presidential careers tend to begin euphorically, screech to a halt in the face of protests over promises becoming policy and end somewhere between indifference and contempt when voters bring out the ballot-box equivalent of the guillotine. The results of regional elections seemed to prove the pattern. President Emmanuel Macron’s party racked up a humiliating defeat less than a year ...

As US troops prepare to leave Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of combat, the situation on the ground could hardly be more disheartening. Taliban insurgents are already racking up battlefield gains; deprived of US close air support and help maintaining its equipment, the Afghan military may well crumble against concerted onslaught. Al-Qaeda maintains ties to the Taliban and could pose ...

Bloomberg Jacob Zuma, who’s been repeatedly implicated in aiding and abetting the plunder of state funds during the near decade he led South Africa, was sentenced to 15 months in jail for defying a court order to testify at a graft inquiry. The Constitutional Court ruled in January that Zuma had to respond to questions from a judicial commission headed ...

Bloomberg Ethiopia’s government began implementing a cease-fire in the war-ravaged Tigray after rebel fighters entered the state capital and celebrated retaking the city. The announcement came after widespread reports that Ethiopia’s national army incurred heavy losses in several locations across the region and were pushed back in multiple locations after the Tigrayan rebels changed strategy and began an offensive after ...

Bloomberg Japan’s No 2 defense official laid out the increasing threats he sees from a more assertive China, including longer-range missiles and more frequent airspace incursions, as the US ally moves to boost defense spending to help counter Beijing. “It’s already possible for them to aim at the East Coast and the White House,” Yasuhide Nakayama, Japan’s state minister of ...

Bloomberg A bad bank in India that’s expected to launch this month may help reduce one of the world’s worst bad-loan piles but market participants say it’s a long path ahead. The new institution, which is set to start operations by the end of June, is likely to handle stressed debt worth $27 billion over time, according to a BloombergQuint ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc has lost about a third of its debt capital markets team covering Chinese state-owned enterprises, a sign the bank is still struggling to win back favor in Beijing three years after becoming embroiled in geopolitical spats between China and the West. The departures in recent weeks include two managing directors, John Hai and Jiang Song, who ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank may end its quantitative easing bond purchases in coming months as it prepares to raise interest rates, according to the Bank of New Zealand. Financial markets are now pricing a better than 50% chance that the Reserve Bank will increase its official cash rate in November, BNZ strategist Nick Smyth wrote in a note to ...