International News

  AFP An Australian couple are raffling their tropical island resort and say they hope whoever holds the winning US$49 ticket loves warm weather. Doug and Sally Beitz moved to the remote Micronesian island of Kosrae in the 1990s, but now want to return to Australia to enjoy being grandparents. Instead of selling their 16-room Kosrae Nautilus Resort to a ...

AFP Ramped-up international sanctions on North Korea have inadvertently disrupted the already challenging work of aid agencies there, those in the field say, with risk-averse banks refusing to transfer funds needed to keep operations running. Aid shipments have also been held up or blocked indefinitely at Chinese customs in confusion over what is covered by the significantly upgraded UN sanctions ...

  Chengdu / AFP Increasingly frequent terrorist attacks are becoming a growing threat to the global economy, finance chiefs from the world’s leading economies said on Sunday. Earlier this month 84 people were killed in Nice when a Tunisian truck driver—suspected to be inspired by the IS extremist group—ploughed a 19-tonne vehicle through a holiday crowd. That followed Paris attacks ...

  Washington / AFP In 1890, the psychologist William James wrote that there was “no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” Indecision is certainly not the habit of Federal Reserve policy makers. But as a divided Fed gathers next week to consider interest rates, they may yet again revise positions that have repeatedly ...

  Bloomberg World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said continued uncertainty following the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union could hurt global growth. “We actually thought the U.S. was solid, the euro zone seemed to be getting better, even Japan seemed to be doing a little bit better,” Kim told Bloomberg Television on Sunday on the sidelines of the ...

  Chengdu / AFP Britain could unleash a government stimulus package this autumn to counter the negative effects of its vote to leave the European Union, its finance minister said Sunday. “We have the option of a fiscal response, and we will do that on our normal timetable around the autumn statement,” Philip Hammond told reporters on the sidelines of ...

  Bloomberg Canada is keen to maintain a strong trade relationship with the U.K. after the country voted to leave the EU, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said. Morneau, speaking to reporters on a conference call after a meeting of Group of 20 officials in China, said he had a “positive discussion” with U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond on ...

  Bloomberg Hershey Trust Co., the $12 billion charity that controls the Hershey chocolate company, reached a tentative agreement with the Pennsylvania attorney general, a move that would reform the governance practices of the controversial organization. “We have reached an agreement in principle and are working on the final details in productive discussions with the office of the attorney general,” ...

  Brussels / AFP The EU should suspend structural funds to Spain and Portugal after they failed to rein in their debt, according to a letter from the European Commission seen by AFP on Saturday. Eurozone finance ministers agreed this month to impose unprecedented sanctions against Spain & Portugal for overstepping the bloc’s budget deficit limits. The penalties would be ...

  Bloomberg Bearish bets against Mobileye NV are receding after the maker of chips and software for driverless cars said it would team up with BMW AG and Intel Corp. to deliver fully-autonomous cars by 2021. Traders cut short interest on Mobileye, at one point the world’s most-shorted software stock, to 17 percent of shares outstanding last week, near the ...