International News

Kuala Lumpur / DPA 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MBD) said its subsidiary Powertek Investment Holdings Sdn Bhd has fully settled its 3 billion ringgit (US$769.8 million) loan ahead of its maturity date. In a statement, the state investment arm said this was made possible with the help of the 1MDB rationalisation plan initiated by the government. “1MDB is pleased to announce ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg Gail India Ltd. bought the second shipment of liquefied natural gas from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana in a deal that makes it the first Asian importer of US shale gas. The nation’s biggest supplier will receive the cargo, bought on spot basis, at the Dabhol import terminal on the country’s west coast ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg The monsoon is set to bring cheers to Indian farmers this year after the first back-to-back shortfall in rainfall in three decades ravaged crops. Showers during the four-month rainy season starting June will probably be normal as the El Nino is seen returning to neutral conditions by the middle of the year, according to Skymet Weather ...

Greece / AFP Greece on Saturday demanded “explanations” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after Wikileaks said the lender sought a crisis “event” to push the indebted nation into concluding talks over its reforms. IMF officials, in an internal discussion, allegedly voiced exasperation with Greece on its slow pace of reform, complaining Athens only moved decisively when faced with the ...

BERLIN / Reuters Germany’s spending on social security could get out of hand as the population ages, a budget specialist in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives warned, contrasting current optimism over plans for no new net borrowing until 2020. Buoyed by record-low unemployment, rising wages and steady economic growth, the German government agreed last month to its biggest increase in the ...

WARSAW / Reuters Central European manufacturing continued to grow in March as a jump in Polish factory activity managed to offset slower growth from Germany, the region’s main trade partner. The former communist countries of the European Union’s eastern wing rely on demand and investment from richer western Europe, which over the past two decades has lifted their living standards. ...

Bloomberg Russia’s oil output set a post-Soviet high in March as the success of a proposed crude production freeze between OPEC members and other major producers appeared to be in doubt. Russian production of crude and a light oil called condensate climbed 2.1 percent in March from a year earlier to 10.912 million barrels a day, according to the Energy ...

Bloomberg The U.K.’s steel crisis — worsened by Tata Steel Ltd.’s decision to sell its plant in Port Talbot, South Wales — has been exacerbated by three green taxes that the government implemented to boost clean energy, according to the manufacturers’s association EEF. The three levies are the Carbon Price Floor, Renewables Obligation and Feed-In Tariff policies. Each works differently. ...

Bloomberg Benchmark Treasuries logged their best week since January even as data pointed to U.S. job-market strength. The rally shows traders are betting the Federal Reserve is focusing more on the struggling global economy than on data back home, according to Aaron Kohli of BMO Capital Markets. Treasuries are off to their best annual start since 2008 as slowing economies ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s state-controlled oil company is offering employees a voluntary dismissal plan as part of an effort to deepen spending cuts to withstand the worst oil market in a generation. Petrobras expects 12,000 employees to quit under the program at a cost of 4.4 billion reais ($1.2 billion), it said in a statement. The staff reductions will save the company ...