International News

  Bloomberg Venezuela declared a two-day work week for government workers and said it was seeking international help to save its power grid amid a drought that threatens the capital’s main source of electricity. The two-day work week, after the government added Wednesdays and Thursdays as non-working days to save more power, will last at least two weeks, President Nicolas ...

  Bloomberg Mexico’s unemployment rate fell to the lowest in almost eight years in March, the latest sign of stronger growth in Latin America’s second-largest economy. The unemployment rate fell to 3.74 percent in non-seasonally adjusted terms, according to a report published on Wednesday by the nation’s statistics agency, known as Inegi. That was below the 3.9 percent median estimate ...

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy lost momentum in the first quarter as services posted their weakest performance for almost a year and industrial production continued to decline. Economic growth slowed to 0.4 percent from 0.6 percent in the final three months of 2015, as forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The estimate, published by the Office for National Statistics ...

  Bloomberg The pound rose for a fourth day versus the dollar as data showed that U.K. economic growth slowed in the first quarter, further evidence that the currency’s direction is being driven by investors’ view on the nation’s June referendum on its membership of the European Union. Sterling touched the highest level versus the U.S. currency since February on ...

  Bloomberg The 1 percent may not be popular among protest marchers, but in the U.K. they’re now paying more than a quarter of all income tax. A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies published on Wednesday found that the proportion of total income tax paid by the top centile rose to 27.5 percent in the 2015-16 tax year ...

  Bloomberg Adidas AG raised its full-year profit forecast for the second time in less than three months after first-quarter results beat its own expectations and as consumers spend more ahead of the Euro 2016 soccer tournament. Net income from continuing operations will rise 15 percent to 18 percent this year, more than a prior range of 10 percent to ...

  Bloomberg The outlook for Russia’s earnings from oil exports is improving as the price of a barrel of crude in ruble terms rose to the highest in more than five months. The currency’s 2.8 percent advance this month has lagged a gain of 18 percent in Brent crude, which is used to price Russia’s main export blend. The exchange ...

  Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government reached a deal with automakers to jointly spend 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) on incentives to boost sluggish electric-car sales. Buyers will be able to receive as much as €4,000 in rebates to help offset the higher price of an electric vehicle, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said at a press conference in Berlin. ...

  Tokyo / AFP The head of crisis-hit Mitsubishi Motors said on Wednesday that sales in Japan have fallen off a cliff since the company admitted last week that it has been cheating on fuel-efficiency tests. Tetsuro Aikawa, the automaker’s president, revealed that orders have dropped by almost half since the scandal erupted, as the crisis takes a toll on ...

  Sydney / Bloomberg Australian consumer prices fell in January-March for the first time since 2008 during the global financial crisis, data showed on Wednesday, putting pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates and sending the local dollar tumbling. The statistics bureau said the consumer price index (CPI) fell 0.2 percent in the quarter from the previous three ...