International News

  Bloomberg Forget for a minute that the flower industry sells beauty and fragrance. Underneath its elegance is a business as cutthroat as Game of Thrones with mulch. Take the case of the Candy Bouquet, a pretty, magenta-and-yellow flower that resembles a petunia. It was developed by a German grower, WesthoffVertriebsgesellschaftMBH, that says it was on the verge of selling ...

  Bloomberg Big oil is dipping a few more toes into clean energy. Exxon Mobil Corp. is partnering with a company to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. Total SA, the French oil supermajor, announced a $1.1 billion deal Monday to buy the battery maker Saft Groupe SA, complementing its 2011 purchase of a majority stake in the solar-panel maker ...

  Bloomberg Last week’s $1.3 billion rout in exchange-traded funds focused on emerging markets engulfed even Mexico, where a stellar earnings season was overshadowed by concern that global growth is slowing. Traders pulled $155.2 million from the nation’s flagship iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF in the five-day period ending May 6, the most among major developing nations after China, according ...

  Bloomberg Argentina’s Grupo Supervielle SA, controller of lender Banco Supervielle SA, is seeking to raise about $190 million in what is set to be the country’s first initial public offering since President Mauricio Macri took office. The bank expects to sell American depositary receipts for $11 to $13 each and issue common shares in Argentina for $2.20 to $2.60 ...

  Bloomberg A bad start to the year for Canadian natural gas producers is getting worse after wildfires in northern Alberta knocked out oil-sands operations that represent a key source of demand. Spot gas prices in Western Canada have been cut by more than half after oil-sands developers curtailed about 40 percent of their supply, reducing the amount of gas ...

  Bloomberg Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron-ore producer, will consider the sale of $10 billion of its best assets by the end of next year as it seeks to reduce its debt load amid sluggish demand. The Rio de Janeiro-based company also will try to raise $4 billion to $5 billion this year by selling such “non-core” businesses as ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s real rose as the Senate gears up for a vote that would force President Dilma Rousseff out and into an impeachment trial she appears unlikely to survive, even as the central bank intervened to weaken the currency. The real strengthened 0.4% to 3.4639 per dollar in Sao Paulo as the monetary authority announced it would offer 20,000 ...

  BEIJING / AP China’s Cabinet approved measures to boost exports in a move that might inflame tensions with Western trading partners that accuse Beijing of flooding their markets with steel and other goods at improperly low prices. The announcement comes as Beijing struggles to reduce a glut of goods in an array of industries and reverse an export decline ...

  Tokyo / Bloomberg Japan will compile a 778 billion yen ($7.2 billion) extra budget to aid the recovery from a series of huge quakes in southern Japan last month, according to ruling party officials with direct knowledge of the spending plan. The government can cover the cost of the supplementary budget because interest payments on Japanese government bonds have ...

  New Delhi / AFP India is a global IT powerhouse but a huge majority of the population remains locked out of the benefits brought by the digital economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday. India’s vibrant business process outsourcing sector, centred in the southern hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad, has made it the leading exporter of IT services and ...