International News

  Frankfurt / AFP Mario Draghi may have bought himself a brief respite from the threat of deflation. The cost? More than a quarter of a trillion dollars. On Thursday, the European Central Bank president should be able to deliver his first snippet of good news for a year on his mandate. Most economists in Bloomberg’s monthly survey predict the ...

  Bloomberg The French economy grew faster than originally estimated in the first quarter, lifted by improving corporate investment. Growth accelerated to 0.6 percent, instead of the 0.5 percent estimated on April 29, France’s statistics office Insee said on Monday. That compares with a 0.4 percent increase in gross domestic product in the previous quarter. The economy expanded 1.4 percent ...

  Bloomberg Noble Group Ltd. said Yusuf Alireza resigned as chief executive officer and announced a plan to sell a business that less than a month ago Alireza himself described as a core asset the trading company wanted to keep. Alireza, 45, decided “the time was right” to leave after shifting the trader toward an asset-light model, selling its agriculture ...

  Bloomberg Gold’s on the ropes. Bullion broke below $1,200 an ounce on Monday after losing more than $100 in less than a month as Federal Reserve policy makers land punch after punch by talking up the prospects for a U.S. interest rate rise and reinvigorating the dollar. Bullion for immediate delivery lost as much as 1 percent to $1,199.80 ...

  Bloomberg Grupo BTG Pactual, the Brazilian bank that was forced to sell assets after the arrest of its founder last year, is exploring the sale of its 50 percent stake in an African joint venture with state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, according to people with knowledge of the matter. BTG has held sales talks with independent oil explorers ...

  Bloomberg Workers at South32 Ltd.’s Cerro Matoso, the world’s second-biggest ferro-nickel mine, voted to take strike action amid a dispute over negotiations on a wage agreement. Members of the Sintracerromatoso union approved the move at the operation in northern Colombia, the union’s negotiator Eder Blanco confirmed in a text message. A strike must begin before June 14, and a ...

  Washington / AFP “Big data” could play a huge role in the 2016 US election, even if Donald Trump doesn’t think so. Trump, who sailed through the Republican primaries using unconventional campaign rallies and Twitter messages, has indicated that he sees little use for popular data analytics tools to help target specific voters. But analysts say he may be at ...

  Caracas, Venezuela / AFP Venezuela’s government on Saturday extended by two weeks a decree reducing the public sector workweek to Mondays and Tuesdays in a bid to tackle the oil-rich country’s electricity crisis. The enforced leave was first announced in late April, a drastic move for a government also grappling with an economic crisis that has Venezuelans queuing for hours ...

  Bloomberg Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., India’s largest drugmaker, said its U.S. unit received a grand jury subpoena from the Justice Department’s antitrust division related to generic products and pricing. The summons also sought documents about communications with competitors and others regarding the sale of generic drugs, along with corporate and employee records, Sun Pharma said in a May 27 ...

  Niteroi, Brazil / AP The elite of the fashion world flocked to Brazil, defying an outbreak of the Zika virus, an economic meltdown and the deep political crisis afflicting the country to attend a runway show Saturday by revered French label Louis Vuitton. Around 500 guests, including A-listers Jaden Smith and Catherine Deneuve and fashion royalty flown in from New ...