Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) record loan to Argentina last year was supposed to turn the page on a troubled history. It’s looking more like a case of déjà vu. Less than two decades ago, Argentina crashed out of an IMF program, defaulted on debt and plunged into depression. As Fund officials arrived in Buenos Aires to assess the ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s leader said her government can handle unrest without assistance from Chinese forces, and still wants to hold talks with protesters despite a flare up in violence. “To this day, the SAR [Special Administrative Region] government is still confident it’s able to solve the disturbance that’s gone on for two months,” Chief Executive Carrie Lam told a regular ...

Bloomberg An Australian writer detained in China seven months ago has been formally arrested on suspicion of espionage, triggering swift demands from the government in Canberra that he be allowed to return home. Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she was “concerned and disappointed” that Yang Hengjun, a Chinese native who’s now an Australian citizen, would “continue to be criminally detained.” ...

Bloomberg Russia was guilty of human rights violations that contributed to the death in a Moscow prison of Sergei Magnitsky, an ally of Kremlin critic Bill Browder, a European court ruled in a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russian officials deprived Magnitsky of “important” medical care, effectively putting his life in danger, the Strasbourg, France-based European Court of Human ...

Bloomberg Thailand will receive a batch of US-made armoured vehicles next month, as ties between the two countries warm following the end of military rule in the Southeast Asian nation. The Strykers — eight-wheeled vehicles designed to move infantry — will be deployed at a base near Bangkok, Army Chief Apirat Kongsompong told reporters. Apirat said Thailand will receive 70 ...

Bloomberg If President Donald Trump’s bid to negotiate with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is a work in progress — three meetings to date and no breakthrough — his suggestion of face time with Iran’s leader appears dead on arrival. Iranian officials ruled out Trump talks with President Hassan Rouhani, who rejected a photo-op and said the US must lift sanctions ...

Bloomberg In the South African township where Nelson Mandela joined the struggle against apartheid, Lordwick Nxumalo is reduced to hustling for a living. Each day, he and other young jobless men of Soweto hang around on Walter Sisulu Square, waiting to take passport pictures for documents like driving licenses. The licensing office boss, who owns the camera, pays 10 rand ...

We’ve been here before: one of those portentous moments when corporate America promises to be more socially “responsible.” These episodes are, it seems, a permanent feature of modern capitalism. Just this week, the Business Roundtable, a group representing the leaders of major corporations, issued a “statement on the purpose of a corporation” that was widely hailed as rejecting the notion ...

India is belatedly acknowledging that something’s gone wrong with what was once billed as the world’s fastest-growing economy. That’s the good news. The bad news is that New Delhi still doesn’t have a cohesive strategy to reverse the slowdown. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did offer a stimulus package. The highlight was the rollback of a tax surcharge on overseas investors ...

Look at some of the headline numbers in Kohl’s Corp.’s second-quarter earnings report, and you’d surmise that things are pretty grim for the department-store chain. Look at the text of the press release, though, and you’ll find bread crumbs of information that suggest it is turning the corner on its near-term problems. Kohl’s comparable sales fell 2.9 percent from a ...