International News

  Bloomberg Greece’s finance minister arranged a last-minute follow-up meeting with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde before returning to Athens from a gathering of global policy makers in Washington, as the nation seeks to unlock more bailout funds from creditors. The creditors are considering proposing additional austerity measures that would kick in if the nation missed budget targets, ...

  Athens / AFP Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said reform talks with the country’s EU-IMF creditors, delayed by disagreements over pension cuts and bad loans, could conclude by May 1. “I believe the target I have specified, to conclude (the talks) by Orthodox Easter (on May 1)… is feasible,” Tsipras told state television ERT. “We are on the verge, I ...

  Bloomberg Banks and asset managers moved closer to winning easier rules for derivatives as European Union member states signaled support for amending regulations as part of a delay in the wider law that revamps oversight of trading across the continent. EU states are considering attaching the policy changes to legislation postponing until January 2018 the vast MiFID II law ...

  AFP Germany’s healthcare system is losing as much as a billion euros a year to scammers, some of whom are linked to the Russian mafia, according to a media report on Sunday. One scam involves health workers who charge for 24-hour care but are alleged to only check on their patients two or three times a day, said the ...

  Bloomberg Banks around Europe are trying to figure out how to provide their services to asylum seekers while making sure they stick to strict rules blocking money laundering & terror financing. By compelling banks to verify the identity of their customers, the requirements make it harder for would-be refugees without a valid ID to open a bank account. Without ...

Kuala Lumpur / Bloomberg Malaysia will meet its economic expansion target this year even as risks to global growth mount and greater volatility may persist in capital flows, central bank Governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz said. Price pressures are “quite contained” due to lower fuel and commodity costs and slightly slower demand, Zeti said in an interview in Washington. Until there ...

  Bangalore / Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. and its competitor in India, Ola, have had cars seized this week in the country’s technology capital of Bangalore for allegedly overcharging customers, a city transport official said. More than 30 Uber and Ola vehicles have been impounded, said Rame Gowda, the Bangalore-based commissioner of transport and road safety. He said operations against ...

  New Delhi / AFP India’s biggest IT outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) says it will challenge $940 million in damages imposed by a US court in an intellectual property theft case. A federal grand jury in the US state of Wisconsin found TCS and its American unit guilty of using data from a US medical software firm without ...

  New Delhi / Bloomberg As Bharti Airtel Ltd. prepares for more competition from the nation’s richest man, the government may be bracing for collateral damage. That’s because India’s largest mobile-phone carrier has bought enough airwaves in the past month to be able to provide 4G services everywhere in the country, reducing Bharti’s need to bid for spectrum in an ...

Bloomberg Global finance ministers and central bankers pledged to step up their efforts to support growth, as chances rise of a broader slowdown and risks including refugee crises and a potential U.K. exit from the European Union threaten the world economy. “Downside risks to the global economic outlook have increased since October, raising the possibility of a more generalized slowdown ...