Bloomberg The German economy is turning into Europe’s underperformer, with the government now predicting 2019 will see the weakest expansion in six years. Amid slowing global momentum and concerns over Brexit and trade disputes, the economy ministry on Wednesday cut its estimate to 0.5 percent, half the pace previously forecast. It’s the latest in a series of downward revisions from ...

Bloomberg As fears grow that T-Mobile US Inc.’s Sprint Corp. merger will be quashed by regulators, Chief Executive Officer John Legere is leading a personal crusade to rescue the deal. The CEO, known for his straggly hair, magenta T-shirts and Twitter antics, has made frequent trips to Washington since the proposed combination was announced in April of 2018. And he’s ...

Bloomberg Indonesian President Joko Widodo was poised to win another term running the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, even as opponent Prabowo Subianto signalled he would challenge the outcome. Six top private polling agencies had Widodo, known as Jokowi, ahead of the former general by at least seven percentage points with about 90 percent of the vote counted. While election authorities ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump vetoed a bipartisan measure passed by Congress earlier this month demanding that he withdraw US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, the White House said. “This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future,” Trump said ...

Bloomberg Sudanese pro-democracy protesters maintained their sit-in at army headquarters to demand civilian rule, as soldiers quashed attempts by mystery gunmen to disperse the long-running demonstration that helped oust President Omar al-Bashir. Gunfire rocked one side of the sprawling protest site in the capital, Khartoum, and witnesses said they saw troops apprehend a small group of masked men with firearms. ...

Bloomberg The Democratic Republic of Congo will join the global fight against IS, which President Felix Tshisekedi said poses a threat to his country. Tshisekedi stressed links between the extremist group and the Allied Democratic Forces, a shadowy militia that has operated in Congo since the 1990s, during a visit to Washington. Little is known about the ADF and analysts ...

Bloomberg In India’s richest state, Maruti Bhosle roamed the parched fields surrounding his one-room tin hut before taking his life. The farmer left behind a wife, a daughter and $2,160 rupees of debt borrowed at a 60 percent interest rate. The story is eerily repeated in many villages in Beed district, which sits a few hours’ drive from India’s financial ...

Asia expert Ezra Vogel published his influential book “Japan as Number One” 40 years ago. At the time, he argued that the US needed to adopt aspects of Japan’s supposedly superior economic system if it wanted to compete with the East Asian powerhouse. Policymakers in Washington were wise to ignore him. While Japan sank into a financial crisis and three ...

Almost 10 years after the Great Recession ended, the growing threat of a new economic slowdown raises a troubling question: When the next recession strikes, what can the world’s central banks do? With interest rates low and their balance sheets still loaded with assets bought to fight the 2008 crisis, do they have the tools to respond? The US economy ...

Grief is not too strong a word for the emotion that hundreds of millions of people around the world felt as they saw the Cathedral of Notre Dame in flames. It wasn’t just that one of Europe’s most beloved buildings was burning, terrible as that was to watch; it was knowing how much this astonishing creation has meant to Parisians, ...