AFP Former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato stands trial on Monday accused of overseeing a “corrupt system” that helped him and other executives misuse funds on hotels, parties and luxury shopping when he was a Spanish bank boss. Uncovered in 2013 by a journalist who saw a hacked email alluding to “black credit cards,” the case threatens to land the ...

  Bloomberg As far as Citigroup Inc. is concerned, Mexico has little choice but to carry out an unprecedented interest-rate increase to arrest a plunge in the peso triggered by Donald Trump’s recent surge in US presidential polls. Mexico’s exchange rate has tumbled 6 percent in the past month, the biggest slide among the world’s major currencies. Citigroup economist Sergio ...

  Bloomberg As Indian Overseas Bank tackles the highest ratio of soured loans among lenders in Asia’s third-largest economy, it doesn’t help that there hasn’t been a chief executive officer at the helm for about three months. The state-controlled lender based in the southern city of Chennai has had a leadership vacuum since R. Koteeswaran retired on June 30 after ...

  Bloomberg National Bank of Canada (NBC) is set to become the first North American bank to issue panda bonds, joining international lenders including Standard Chartered Plc and HSBC Holdings Plc in issuing yuan-denominated securities in China’s domestic bond market. National Bank, the nation’s sixth-largest lender by assets, was approved to sell up to 5 billion yuan ($750 million) of ...

  Bloomberg A Kenyan lender that transformed from an also-ran into the country’s biggest deposit-taker, mainly through a mobile-phone banking service started four years ago, plans to use the product as a beachhead to expand outside its East African home base. Commercial Bank of Africa Ltd., which also has units in Tanzania and Uganda, is seeking to export its M-Shwari ...

  Wayang Windu / AFP Columns of steam shoot from the ground at an Indonesian power plant sitting in the shadow of an active volcano, as energy is tapped from the red-hot underbelly of the archipelago. Pipes zig-zag up rugged mountainsides covered in tea plantations, carrying steam from the Earth’s core to power enormous, electricity-generating turbines at the Wayang Windu ...

  Havana / AFP Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said it was time for a new direction in relations with Cuba, during a landmark visit to the Americas’ lone communist-ruled state. During the first visit by a Chinese premier since the two countries established diplomatic relations 56 years ago Li pledged to “inject a new dynamic in (bilateral) relations,” Cuban state ...

  Beijing / AFP The world’s largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China on Sunday, a project Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Built at a cost of 1.2 billion ...

  Bloomberg Hawaiian Airlines is waiting to see whether six A330neo jetliners ordered from Airbus will enable it to begin service to Europe. The U.S. carrier also is looking at adding more routes to China and the eastern U.S., and examining whether it should consider acquiring the A380 superjumbo, according to its chief executive officer. Flights to London are a ...

  Bloomberg BHS will reopen as a UK online brand this week as new owner Al Mana Group of Qatar seeks to revive the 88-year-old British retailer only months after it failed. Al Mana, which acquired the BHS brand at the time of its collapse in June, will initially sell a range of lighting and home-furnishing products on BHS.com, the ...