Bloomberg The US is weighing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, Rex Tillerson said in Argentina, as he continues a South America trip that’s quickly being dogged by President Donald Trump’s threat to cut aid to the countries the Secretary of State is visiting. Tillerson said that during his meetings with Argentina’s leaders he’d raised the possibility of oil sanctions as ...

Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron doesn’t wa-nt Corsica to turn into France’s Catalonia. The French president on Tuesday begins a two-day visit to the Mediterranean island where a recently elected local administration is making demands for greater autonomy that the national government so far has indicated it can’t accept. French governments have long struggled in their dealings with Corsica, an island of ...

Bloomberg Australian leader Malcolm Turnbull has found timely inspiration in his bid to woo back disaffected voters this year: Donald Trump. Turnbull is seeking to draw on the US president’s first key legislative victory that’s handing wide-ranging tax cuts to firms and workers. Trump’s success has given the prime minister confidence to make a renewed push for lower corporate levies, ...

BRUSSELS / Reuters The prime surviving suspect in the 2015 IS attacks on Paris said he would answer no questions as his trial in Belgium over a shooting that preceded his arrest got under way in Brussels on Monday. Salah Abdeslam, 28, his long black hair and beard a stark contrast to the cropped, clean-shaven young man familiar across Europe ...

Bloomberg There’s no military solution to the long-running conflict in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said, warning little progress would be made until all sides entered into peace talks. Abbasi voiced skepticism over US President Donald Trump’s increase in troops to assist the Afghan security forces and said Islamabad was ready to help mediate talks with the Taliban, ...

Bloomberg Nicos Anastasiades was re-elected as Cyprus president, winning his bid to continue overseeing the Mediterranean island’s economic recovery nearly six years after the country came close to financial collapse. Anastasiades, 71, the candidate of the center-right Disy party, won 56 percent of the vote, compared with 44 percent for Stavros Malas, an independent candidate backed by the leftist Akel ...

Bloomberg Polls may be downplaying the chances that a center-right coalition backed by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi will win a majority in upcoming Italian elections on March 4. The so-called “shy-factor” in the polling process, which underestimates voting intentions for right-wing parties, and a new electoral law that favors coalitions, may give Berlusconi’s bloc enough seats to form a government, ...

There is an acute struggle dividing US voters that isn’t about Democrats versus Republicans or differences on issues. It’s about the public’s optimistic view of the economy during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency and the simultaneously pessimistic view of Trump himself. The contrast is striking. Polls show overwhelming satisfaction with the state of the economy, the most since ...

Last week, China said it plans to build a ‘Polar Silk Road’ that will open shipping lanes across the largely pristine region at the top of the world. It’s an ambitious idea for a country that lacks an Arctic border, and it has raised concerns around the world about China’s ultimate intentions and its capacity for environmental stewardship. Although these ...

Is it a blip, a correction or the end of days? Stock markets in Asia tumbled on Monday, extending the biggest global selloff in two years. Equity investors are fretting as Treasury yields approach 3 percent. On Friday, 10-year returns touched 2.85%, and the dollar rallied 0.9 percent. Some context, however. While the MSCI Asia ex-Japan Index’s 7.5% return in ...