Bloomberg Eritrea says it will cut the size of its army as part of changes to a system of mandatory national service that the United Nations blames for propelling tens of thousands of people to flee to Europe and neighbouring countries. The official end to a two-decade war with neighbouring Ethiopia means the country that sits on a key shipping ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s imprisoned ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is meeting with his aides on Monday to map out his party’s next moves after the country’s top electoral court banned him from running for president in October. Former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, Lula’s running mate and likely successor in the race, is in the southern city of Curitiba, where ...

Bloomberg Mark Read is stepping out from the shadow of WPP Plc founder Martin Sorrell as the advertising giant’s new chief executive, and he has a clear message: change is coming. “There are no sacred cows,” Read said in a phone interview, shortly after WPP confirmed his appointment on Monday. In an unusually lengthy statement, Read promised renewal and a ...

Bloomberg Ford Motor Co. said it’s standing by its Mondeo family car, adding it will move forward with plans for an upgrade of the 25-year-old model and denying a Sunday Times report that it plans to halt production. The Mondeo remains a “core part” of its product line-up in Europe, and there will be improvements introduced later this year, the ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturing growth unexpectedly slowed to the weakest in two years last month as export orders contracted amid a weakening of the global economy. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 52.8 in August, the firm said, down from 53.8 a month earlier, and below the 53.9 forecast by economists. A gauge of new orders for exports fell below ...

Bloomberg Uganda pre-qualified eight groups of companies for a public-private partnership to build and operate a 95-kilometre (59-mile) toll road worth more than $1 billion. France-based Vinci SA, Strabag SE Austria and Tecnasol Luisa Goncal of Portugal are leading groups in bids for the road linking the capital, Kampala, to Jinja town in the east, Uganda Roads Authority Executive Director ...

Bloomberg For the past year, select Google advertisers have had access to a potent new tool to track whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the US. That insight came thanks in part to a stockpile of Mastercard transactions that Google paid for. But most of the two billion Mastercard holders aren’t ...

Bloomberg The latest threat to the dominance of Britain’s six biggest energy suppliers is coming from small technology companies that automatically switch consumers to the cheapest deal. Their emergence couldn’t come at a worse time for the industry, which is already beset by lawmakers capping rates and suffering from perennial mistrust by consumers. On top of that, utilities are getting ...

Bloomberg Oil in London traded near a two-month high as Iranian crude and condensate exports fell to their lowest level in more than two years, showcasing concerns over a potential supply shortfall once US sanctions on the Middle East nation’s shipments start in November. Brent futures gained as much as 0.7 percent. Iran shipped just under 2.1 million barrels a ...

Bloomberg Ghana signed eight cooperation agreements with China following talks between the two nations’ leaders in Beijing ahead of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation that started on Monday. The package of agreements included the $2 billion infrastructure deal Ghana reached in July with Sinohydro Corp. to improve its roads and develop railways in exchange for bauxite, according to a statement ...