BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq plans to award oil and gas exploration and development contracts in 11 new blocks on April 15, oil ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said. Iraq had initially set June 21 as the date to open the bids for the new blocks, located in border areas with Iran and Kuwait, and in offshore Gulf waters. Bidding documents will ...

Bloomberg The European Union distanced itself from the idea of reviving talks on a broad free-trade agreement with the US as part of EU efforts to gain a permanent exemption from President Donald Trump’s controversial import tariffs on steel and aluminum. A day after US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration is willing to restart negotiations on the ...

Bloomberg Tesla Inc. is recalling all Model S cars built before April 2016 to retrofit a power-steering component as the company caps its worst one-month performance in the stock market since December 2010. The issue, which the carmaker said has not led to any accidents or injuries, impacts only the flagship Model S sedan, not the Model X sport utility ...

Bloomberg Telegram Group Inc., an encrypted messaging app seeking to create its own cryptocurrency, has increased the proceeds from the world’s largest initial offering to $1.7 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Telegram raised $850 million from 94 investors in March in addition to $850 million it gained in February, and “may pursue one or more subsequent offerings,” the British ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. pays female staff in Britain just 0.8 percent less on average than male employees, but womens’ bonuses are almost 40 percent lower. The mean average disparity in pay at Facebook is an improvement compared to Google’s UK arm, where women are paid on average 17 percent less than men. Google’s average bonus for female staff is 43 ...

Bloomberg David Shulkin, removed days ago as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, said political appointees engineered his ouster as they push for “more aggressive” changes to how the sprawling department is run. “I did not resign,” Shulkin said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” In a separate interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said that “There would be ...

Bloomberg The veteran local governor of the Siberian region of Kemerovo has resigned over a shopping-mall blaze last week that claimed more than 60 lives. Aman Tuleyev, who’s been governor of the Russian mining region since 1997, said the decision to submit his resignation was the “right, conscious and only true decision” after the March 25 blaze, which killed 64 ...

AMMAN /Reuters Negotiators in the last rebel-held bastion in Syria’s eastern Ghouta reached a deal with the Russian side to evacuate the wounded from Douma to rebel-held northern Syria, local sources familiar with the deal said. The agreement was reached by the negotiating committee that comprises both civic leaders and representatives of Jaish al Islam, the rebel faction in control ...

Bloomberg The Kremlin is sensing a crack in European unity as France and Germany seek to maintain ties, even after the West’s unprecedented expulsion of Russian diplomats over the nerve-agent attack in the UK. French President Emmanuel Macron still plans to visit a showcase economic forum in Russia in late May, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, two days after ...

Call it the Holy Grail of the euro zone. Ever since the financial crisis, economists have been seeking ways to create a safe financial instrument, which banks in the single currency area can buy without having to load up on domestic sovereign bonds. Many placed their hopes in the proposal of a bundle of sovereign bonds called “European Safe Bonds” ...