International News

  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 …

  Tokyo / Bloomberg Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s fraudulent fuel-economy testing and the subsequent plunge in its stock price and sales could cost its second-largest shareholder about 335 billion yen ($3 billion), as the Japanese carmaker’s disclosure reverberates through its business group. Mitsubishi Corp., which owns 10 percent of Mitsubishi Motors, is the first of the automaker’s major shareholders to measure …

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy received no help from its international trade performance in the first quarter, official figures published on Tuesday suggest. The deficit widened to 13.3 billion pounds ($19 billion), the most since the start of 2008, from 12.2 billion pounds in the fourth quarter of 2015, the Office for National Statistics said. The shortfall in goods alone …

Bloomberg Industrial production in the euro area’s three biggest economies disappointed in March, possibly signaling slackening demand in Europe. German production, adjusted for seasonal swings, fell 1.3 percent, its second consecutive decline and exceeding a 0.2 percent drop predicted by economist in a Bloomberg survey. In France, output unexpectedly fell 0.3 percent, and Italy saw production stagnate in March after …

  AFP An International Monetary Fund team arrived in Kiev on Tuesday after the formation of a new Ukrainian government resolved a prolonged political crisis that had stalled the release of vital aid. The mission’s visit was long awaited in the cash-strapped former Soviet country as it grapples with the costs of a two-year conflict in the pro-Russian separatist east …

  Bloomberg AbertisInfraestructuras SA agreed to pay €594 million ($677 million) to buy control of two Italian highways as the Spanish toll-road operator presses ahead with its international expansion plan. Abertis reached an accord with IntesaSanpaoloSpA, AstaldiSpA and the Tabacchi family to buy the two companies that control 51 percent of A4 Holding, which owns the A4 Brescia-Padova and A31 …

  Bloomberg After years of aggressive regulation reining them in, Europe’s banks are starting to get some slack from the policy makers in Brussels. The European Union has opened up the entire financial rule book for review, including contentious issues such as the cap on bankers’ bonuses. Faced with weak banks and an anemic economy, regulators have made clear that …

  Bloomberg Natural gas futures have soared since March on speculation that supplies are finally falling after a decade of gains. Production numbers tell a different story. Prices have gained 28 percent from a 17-year low in March, the biggest advance for the period since 2002, as investors including Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn bet the market would put a dent …

  Bloomberg Mexico’s consumer prices dropped more than forecast in April as electricity and food prices tumbled, keeping the annual inflation rate below the central bank’s target. Prices decreased 0.32 percent from a month earlier, the national statistics institute said on its website. The median forecast of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for a decline of 0.25 percent. From …

  Bloomberg For about a half hour, it looked like Brazil’s world-beating rallies were coming undone. A few minutes before noon on a relatively calm trading day in Sao Paulo, the real suddenly plummeted by the most in four years and $16.5 billion was wiped off the value of the benchmark stock index. Within 30 minutes, both markets had mostly …