Bloomberg Sierra Leone holds a presidential run-off vote for the right to rule the West African nation that’s facing the challenge of reviving an economy battered by the Ebola outbreak and a drop in commodity prices. Former military head of state Julius Maada Bio of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party led Samura Kamara of the ruling All People’s ...

Bloomberg Russia arrested Summa Group co-owner Ziyavudin Magomedov, who has been in talks to sell his stake in a key port, as part of case into suspected embezzlement of state funds for infrastructure and energy projects. Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court ordered Magomedov to be held for two months and declined his request to post as bail the 2.5 billion-ruble ($44 ...

Bloomberg Russia ordered the UK to make deep new cuts at its diplomatic missions one day after Moscow kicked out 60 US envoys, ratcheting up tensions with the West over the poisoning of a former spy. The UK must cut “more than 50” diplomatic and technical staff at its Russian embassy and consulate within a month, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria ...

Explaining Japan’s economy to Western audiences is hard. One big reason for this is that explaining something as large and complex as a $5 trillion economy is an inherently difficult task — there are a lot of conflicting trends, regional differences and other wrinkles. A second reason is that Japan tends to be somewhat out of sync with the US ...

Big tech continues to dominate the news and has become a major driver of US stock markets. But the sector’s dominant narrative has changed in the last few months. Amazement at the power of disruptive innovation to change not just what we do but also how we do it is now accompanied, if not tempered, by concerns about misuse and ...

What could be a more perfect match than a cash-rich company with waning returns and a consummate dealmaker with an insatiable desire for investments? That may be the best lens through which to consider the news that Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to buy 25 percent of Swiss Re AG, in a deal that would value the ...

It may be one of the most opportune flubs in economics. A slip of the tongue by the US Treasury’s top international official offers one way out of the trade skirmish between the US and China. Few serious people want tariffs ordered by President Donald Trump and the Chinese import restrictions imposed in response to degenerate into a trade war ...

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has nine months to define what Brexit will actually mean and she’ll have to do battle on three fronts to get there—in Brussels, in Parliament and with her own Conservative Party. Her priorities are to decide what the future relationship with Europe might look like, solve the intractable puzzle of the Irish border and see ...

It tells you something about the priorities of Southeast Asia’s largest bank when it announces a hackathon to quickly recruit 100 budding technologists. DBS Group Holdings Ltd hired the same number last year, but this year its needs are spread over a wider skill set, including user-interface design and mobile-application development, even scrum mastery, which, I understand, has nothing to ...

It’s easy to understand Apple chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Cook’s somewhat self-righteous comments on the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal: His company has never emphasized customer data monetization, and privacy has been one of its persistent selling points. Apple still collects our data—and reserves the right to share it—but the company has a much better track record than newer tech titans. ...