Bloomberg Mauritian banks are becoming beacons of growth and stability in sub-Saharan Africa. Unscathed by the vagaries of the oil price and unhindered by the political battles that have roiled some of their continental peers, the Indian Ocean island’s lenders have been bolstered by an economy growing faster than many of the mainland countries. The central bank expects the Mauritian …

Bloomberg Akzo Nobel NV’s court victory against activist shareholder Elliott Management Corp. has strengthened the Dutch paintmaker’s hand in resisting a takeover approach from suitor PPG Industries Inc. and put pressure on the US rival to take its offer directly to investors. The Commercial Court of the Netherlands ruled late on Monday that Akzo Nobel is under no obligation to …

Bloomberg Denmark’s center-right government raised its forecast for economic growth this year and predicted it will borrow less via bond markets as the public deficit shrinks. The minority coalition of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen expects gross domestic product to expand 1.7 percent this year, faster than the 1.5 percent it forecast just last month, according to Economy Ministry documents …

Bloomberg Sweden’s economy slowed at the start of the year as exports struggled to maintain momentum, dulling a housing-fueled investment and consumption boom in the largest Nordic economy. Gross domestic product grew 0.4 percent in the first quarter and expanded an annual 2.2 percent, Statistics Sweden said on Tuesday. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated growth of 0.9 percent and 2.9 …

Bloomberg Turkey may sell as much as $8 billion in debt, according to a US regulatory filing, a sign the government may be preparing to ramp up borrowing as it seeks to plug a widening budget deficit. Turkey may offer the securities from “time to time in one or more offerings” and will use the proceeds for general financing purposes, …

When in the Senate chamber, Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, sits by choice at the desk used by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. New York’s scholar-senator would have recognized that Sasse has published a book of political philosophy in the form of a guide to parenting. Moynihan understood that politics is downstream from culture, which flows through families. Sasse, a …

After China, it’s Hong Kong’s turn to take Moody’s Investors Service to task. The city’s financial secretary wrote a blog post on Sunday to express his displeasure with the recent one-notch cut in Hong Kong’s sovereign rating to Aa2. More than the downgrade, what seems to have really irked Paul Chan are the 16 references to “links” and “linkages;” four …

The gory details of the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the House legislation to “repeal and replace” Obamacare are, in many ways, superfluous. The bill’s flaws, substantive and otherwise, have long been evident. Less clearly understood, though equally disturbing, is the larger political context. That’s not to say the particulars of the CBO report, released Wednesday, are irrelevant: far from …

Three years after he was elected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi looms over India’s political scene like no other leader in the country’s recent history. And his critics must explain why his mass appeal seems unimpaired, despite his increasingly authoritarian ways and growing failures. Modi is far from realizing his promises of economic and military security. Pakistan-backed militants continue to strike …

Universal basic income (UBI) schemes are often rejected out of hand as too expensive. In some countries, however, paying every resident a basic income sufficient for survival could actually result in budget savings. That’s the surprising conclusion in a fresh policy brief from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD decided to contribute to the basic income …