Bloomberg Africa’s major economies are taking diverging approaches to monetary policy as they struggle to cope with volatile currencies, slumping growth and political meddling. Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are set to announce interest-rate decisions this week in an environment marked by accelerating price growth and an economic slump in some countries and attempts by politicians to prescribe ...

  Frankfurt / AFP The European Central Bank (ECB) must not allow low interest rates and monetary stimulus to last indefinitely, the head of Germany’s Bundesbank (central bank) said on Monday. “Under no circumstances can interest rates remain so low for longer than is absolutely necessary with regard to price stability,” Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann told a group of European ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia’s ruling United Russia party has won a record number of seats in parliamentary polls that could pave the way for President Vladimir Putin to glide to a fourth term in 2018 elections. With more than 98.3 percent of the ballots counted, United Russia had garnered 54.2 percent of the votes for parties, giving it a ...

  Kandahar / AFP A US air raid has killed eight Afghan policemen in the country’s volatile south, officials said on Monday, in the first apparent “friendly fire” incident since American forces were granted greater powers to strike at insurgents. The incident occurred on Sunday in the Tali area of Uruzgan province, where the Taliban recently attempted to overrun the capital ...

  Zagreb / AFP A former Serb paramilitary commander, extradited from Australia last year, will go on trial in Croatia on Tuesday charged with the torture and murder of civilians and prisoners of war in the 1990s. Dragan Vasiljkovic — or ‘Captain Dragan’ — was handed over by Canberra after almost a decade-long legal battle, becoming the first suspected war criminal ...

  Yangon / AFP At least eight people have been killed and thousands displaced by clashes in southeast Myanmar, rebels and border forces said on Monday, violence that threatens to undercut the new government’s push for peace. Fighting broke out this month between government troops and an ethnic rebel splinter group known as the DKBA in Karen state, near the border ...

  AFP India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi on Monday summoned top security advisers to thrash out a response to a deadly raid on a Kashmir army base blamed on militants from Pakistan, amid calls for tough action against the nuclear-armed nation. Modi has vowed to punish those behind the attack in which gunmen hurling grenades stormed a base, killing 17 ...

  AFP The spread of superbugs that are resistant to all known drug treatments could spark a global financial crisis on the level of the 2008 meltdown or worse, a World Bank-led study warned on Monday. Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise, and in the future, many infectious diseases will once again be untreatable, forcing more people into poverty and ...

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc is eliminating more than 200 positions from its management team as Chief Executive Officer Warren East extends a wide-reaching restructuring of the embattled engine maker. The additional cuts brings the total trimming of management positions under East’s reign to more than 600, a Rolls-Royce spokesman said in a statement in response to a Financial Times ...

  Bloomberg OVS SpA, Italy’s largest children’s clothing retailer, agreed to buy Charles Voegele Holding AG with two other investors for about 56 million francs ($57 million), ensuring the survival of the ailing Swiss chain after years of speculation about its future. The offer price of 6.38 francs per share is 2.1 percent higher than Charles Voegele’s closing price on ...