Bloomberg Lebanon is headed for a showdown after the government suffered its first resignations, as the country enters its fourth day of demonstrations in the largest such unrest in years. Four ministers from a major Christian party, the Lebanese Forces, stood down as Prime Minister Saad Hariri said he was working around the clock to come up with a plan ...

Bloomberg India and Pakistan blamed each other for violation of a ceasefire agreement in the disputed area of Kashmir, after cross-border shelling killed people on both sides, in signs of escalating tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Indian army’s spokesman said two of its soldiers and a civilian were killed, while Pakistan said four of its people, including a soldier, ...

Bloomberg Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party edged ahead with a two-point lead over its Conservative rival, within the margin of error, according to the latest poll conducted days before Monday’s election. A survey by Nanos Research found 32.6% of respondents favored the Liberals as their top choice versus 30.3% favouring the Conservative Party led by Andrew Scheer. The ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson sent the letter to Brussels he never wanted to send. Bound by a law passed by opposition Members of Parliament, he formally asked the European Union to delay Brexit until January 31, but made it clear he’d rather there was no extension. European Council President Donald Tusk said he’ll start consulting EU leaders on how to react, ...

Bloomberg The finance ministers of Kenya and Somalia insist that a maritime-border dispute between the two nations won’t stop the cross-border flow of humanitarian aid and trade. The dispute about ownership of a 150,000 square-kilometre (58,000 square-mile) area off their Indian Ocean coastline has not caused any hostility between the two nations, Somalia Finance Minister Abdirahman Duale Beileh and Kenya’s ...

Bloomberg Mmusi Maimane, the leader of South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), saw his hold on the party slip as his predecessor Helen Zille was elected head of the party’s Federal Council. Maimane has come under pressure to quit as leader of the DA after the party’s share of the vote shrank to 20.8% in May elections from 22.2% ...

Bloomberg When it comes to mixed messages from markets, 2019 has been a year with few precedents. Whenever a believable signal starts to emerge from stocks or bonds about the economy, it changes. While some disagreement is normal, this is approaching the historic. For context, in a typical year, returns in either equities or Treasuries lead the other by 10 ...

Bloomberg Count the chief of the biggest US bank among doubters of Facebook Inc’s effort to create a cryptocurrency. “It was a neat idea that’ll never happen,” JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon said on a panel at a conference hosted by the Institute of International Finance in Washington. Dimon said the idea wasn’t particularly unique and pointed to ...

Bloomberg Conflicting Brexit headlines keep coming and Boris Johnson’s ability to pull off a deal remains in doubt. But this isn’t stopping stock investors from taking a bet on the UK economy. The Vanguard FTSE 250 UCITS exchange-traded fund, which tracks the index of mid-cap companies that are more sensitive to domestic growth and benefit when sterling is stronger, has ...

Bloomberg Nothing right now is stopping a surge in oil tanker rates that’s given owners of the vessels one of the biggest boosts in years. Rates have rallied so high that a secondhand supertanker could theoretically pay for itself in a couple of voyages, according to estimates from Clarkson Platou Securities AS. A normal payback period would often be about ...