Bloomberg Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic probably won’t seek a second term, as he intends to complete the work needed to lead his country into the European Union when his mandate ends in 2022. Vucic, who as the leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party is the Balkan state’s most powerful politician, said in an interview that he’d announce proposals to ...

Bloomberg Poland defied the European Union’s unprecedented call for member states to punish it for failing to uphold the bloc’s values, signing into law a judicial overhaul that puts the country at risk of economic sanctions and losing its voting rights. President Andrzej Duda announced the decision, hours after the European Commission said the government in Warsaw posed a threat ...

Bloomberg Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski survived a pell-mell impeachment effort over allegations that he lied about dealings with Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA, which is at the center of the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America’s history. After a congressional session that lasted more than 13 hours, lawmakers in the opposition-dominated chamber fell short of the two-thirds majority needed ...

Bloomberg Thousands of Israelis demonstrated against government corruption as police move to wrap up an investigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on suspicions of bribery. In addition to the weekly march in central Tel Aviv by liberal opponents of the government, which police said drew about 5,000 people, about 500 conservatives normally allied with Netanyahu held a parallel protest in ...

It’s possible that more than half of the US’s trade deficit is a mirage — an artifact of corporate shenanigans designed to avoid taxes. Official statistics say that the US trade deficit is about 3 percent of gross domestic product — smaller than in the 2000s, but still historically large. But a recent Goldman Sachs note about tax reform makes ...

For all the hype about the decline of the West, it still largely controls whether emerging markets thrive or suffer. The broad global pick-up in growth this year propelled emerging markets toward the biggest gains in stocks and currencies in almost a decade. China’s debt binge did add ballast to the global expansion, and the country’s neighbors are vulnerable to ...

With the crisis deepening at Steinhoff International Holdings NV, a January sale of its assets looks increasingly likely. But this is not the time to be offloading retail businesses. The company was putting a brave face on its operating performance at a presentation to creditors on Tuesday. That does not alter the fact that for some of its large assets, ...

Italy’s Five Star Movement, which is on track to win the most votes in next year’s election, likes to portray itself as the party of transparency and honesty, in contrast with the opportunism of the mainstream political forces. When it comes to Italy’s membership of the euro, however, Five Star are showing the same kind of reckless expediency they attack ...

Running a money-management firm provides a window into the psyches of all kinds of people: long-term investors, real estate speculators, institutional traders, tech entrepreneurs and everyone in between. During any given week, I speak with all sorts of people who have capital at risk in markets. Most understand what they are investing in and why. Then there are the folks ...

Boeing Co.’s latest salvo in the escalating battle with its planemaking rivals could wind up piercing its own foot. The $175 billion company, it was revealed, is in talks to acquire Brazilian regional-jet maker Embraer SA. The deal would give Boeing products that compete with the Bombardier Inc. C-Series planes in which its rival Airbus SE just agreed to acquire ...