Bloomberg Taiwanese voters delivered President Tsai Ing-wen’s party a resounding defeat in local elections Saturday, ousting it from several key strongholds. Opposition Kuomintang candidates claimed victory in mayoral races in the major cities of Kaohsiung and Taichung as well as the governor positions in Yilan, Changhua and Yunlin counties, traditionally seen as bastions of support for Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party. ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump said Mexico would be “very smart” to stop groups of Central American migrants before they reached the southern US border, and again laid the blame for US immigration problems on Democrats. The president took to Twitter a day after reports that his administration has struck a deal with Mexico’s incoming government that would mean Washington could use ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues are likely to turn more wary about marching interest rates higher after delivering a widely anticipated quarter percentage-point increase in December. Prospects for slowing global economic growth, fading US fiscal stimulus and volatile financial markets all argue for more caution once officials lift rates next month near or into neutral territory, ...

Bloomberg The Bank of England (BOE) may need to increase interest rates at a quicker pace than currently envisaged by markets, according to policy maker Michael Saunders. Spare capacity in the economy has been used up, and, assuming Brexit reaches a smooth conclusion, inflationary pressures will probably build somewhat faster than officials predicted in their latest projections, Saunders said in ...

Bloomberg India’s government wants to discuss changes to the Reserve Bank of India’s governance structure at a board meeting next month, including setting up some oversight panels, Economic Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg told ET Now. Garg, who is a government nominee for the RBI board, told another television channel CNBC-TV18 that the administration will ask for more interim dividends from ...

Bloomberg Italy’s central bank warned that low growth and high public debt pose the greatest risks to financial stability, while further sovereign bond market tensions would hurt banks’ capital and the solvency position of insurers. In its Financial Stability Report, the Bank of Italy outlines risks arising from uncertainty about the economic and fiscal policy in the country, which led ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s base interest rate is becoming more and more irrelevant. That’s the view of some analysts after the Monetary Policy Committee in Africa’s biggest oil producer held its key rate for the 14th straight meeting, despite inflation being above its target range of 6 percent to 9 percent for more than three years. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele is ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s fuel shortages are worsening as mass resignations at the state oil company’s tanker fleet have delayed gasoline shipments. Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s refineries are running at less than a quarter of their capacity, forcing the country to rely on imported gasoline. Once the cargoes are unloaded at import docks, smaller ships distribute fuel to terminals along the coast, ...

Bloomberg The UK might fail to honour commitments relating to emergency fuel stockpiles as its exit from the European Union approaches, a trade group representing the nation’s oil refiners said. Europe manages its fuel inventories as a bloc, so part of the UK’s emergency stocks can be held in other member states. In some cases, the fuels are held by ...

Bloomberg PG&E Corp’s financial pain is spreading to some of the power plants that sell it electricity. Fitch Ratings Ltd downgraded the debt of two solar farms in California, citing concern about PG&E’s finances. The utility, which was downgraded last week, is the sole electricity customer for Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farms and NextEra Energy Inc’s 250-megawatt Genesis ...