Bloomberg The convicted former prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia said he has fled to Hungary and applied for political asylum there, challenging Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s balancing act between mainstream European politics and its nationalist fringe. Orban faces a tough decision. He can grant asylum to Nikola Gruevski, the Macedonian leader who escaped to Hungary to avoid starting ...

America’s body politic has recently been scarred by excruciating political shingles, and 2018 campaigning was equivalent to acid reflux. But the elections indicated that some political antibodies are strengthening the nation’s immune system. November 6 was, on balance, deflating to Democrats, who learned — or perhaps not — that despising this president, although understandable, is insufficient. His comportment caused his ...

With Black Friday just around the corner, retailers are revealing their tactics for vacuuming up consumers’ holiday gift dollars. And with this year’s playbook, Amazon.com Inc. — often vaunted as the industry’s pacesetter — is surprisingly taking some cues from the old guard. The e-commerce giant’s first print toy catalog started making its way to shoppers’ mailboxes this week. Yes, ...

Telecom Italia SpA’s headquarters sits about 200 meters from the Porta Salaria, the city gate through which salt arrived in ancient Rome from the Adriatic coast. Some of that salt is being rubbed into the wounds of the aggrieved Italian carrier, which announced a 2 billion-euro impairment on the value of its home operations, partly a consequence of new competition ...

What does strongman showmanship look like? In India, it’s 25,000 tons of steel, 3,550 tons of bronze and 210,000 cubic meters of cement and concrete — towering over the world at a cost of about $400 million. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently unveiled the Statue of Unity in his home state of Gujarat. The likeness is of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, ...

There are no more sensitive topics in British politics than Brexit, tax avoidance and Russian interference. A Molotov cocktail of all three has catapulted businessman Arron Banks to a notoriety he could only have dreamt of when he started his campaign to leave the European Union (EU). Last week Banks’s campaign group and his company Eldon were fined for breaking ...

New-age financiers: Looking to do some good while earning a 51 percent yield? Indonesia’s the place. The nation of 260 million people is the perfect venue for fintech startups, from digital-credit-card providers to peer-to-peer lenders. Only half the over-15 population has bank accounts, while a paltry 2 percent hold credit cards. Traditional banks aren’t keen to enter the “subprime” consumer ...

After years of rumours and speculation, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd finally presented a smartphone with a foldable display that it plans to start selling next year. At the risk of sounding like a wide-eyed teenager, I consider this a potentially disruptive innovation on the scale of the iPhone—if the manufacturers can handle it right. The technology has been more or ...

Bloomberg US equity futures and European stocks recouped some of the previous session’s losses on hopes for progress in the American-Chinese trade dispute, even as Asian shares dropped overall. Crude oil headed for the lowest close this year. Contracts on the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 all traded higher and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index rose for the first time ...

Bloomberg India stocks gained on investor optimism that the falling price of crude oil, the nation’s biggest import, will help companies maintain earnings growth by keeping inflation in check. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index climbed 1 percent to 35,144.49 in Mumbai, reversing a drop of as much as 0.4 percent. Reliance Industries Ltd., the country’s second largest company by ...