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Bloomberg Nearly three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is moving to eliminate the so-called solidarity tax that helped finance reunification. The 5.5% tax that was levied on all but low-income earners is to be abolished from 2021 for 90% of those currently paying it, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in Berlin. In 2018 the levy generated ...

Bloomberg BlackRock Inc.’s private equity vehicle struck its first deal, backing a company that manages brands including Sports Illustrated, Marilyn Monroe and Juicy Couture. The firm’s Long-Term Private Capital fund became the largest shareholder of Authentic Brands Group, the company said. The fund and affiliated entities invested $875 million, said Andre Bourbonnais, head of Long-Term Private Capital. The deal values ...

Bloomberg Serbia will invest billions of euros in new homes, energy, transportation and digital infrastructure, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday, as the government seeks to boost economic growth prospects. “We are in position to easily ensure at least 10 or even 12 billion euros ($13.4 billion) of funding for new investments,” the president said at a news conference in ...

Bloomberg The next Italian government needs to get “creative” to fix the country’s stalling economy, according to ADA Economics Ltd. Chief Economist Raffaella Tenconi. Italy’s economy has failed to grow in four out of the last five quarters. While economists predict it will expand again in the second half of the year, gross domestic product is forecast to increase just ...

Bloomberg Argentina is once again on the cusp of a full-blown financial crisis. In the wake of President Mauricio Macri’s stunning rout in primary elections, investors dumped its stocks, bonds and currency en masse, leaving much of Wall Street wondering whether country was headed for yet another default. The upset, widely seen as a preview of October’s presidential vote, threw ...

Bloomberg When two UK power plants shut down almost simultaneously in London’s first major blackout for a decade, it triggered a storm of questions about how to avoid another failure. As National Grid Plc, the regulator Ofgem and plant operators investigate what happened, last week’s failure underlined the need to bolster an electricity grid increasingly fed by intermittent flows from ...

Bloomberg After cancelations, delays and strikes, British train commuters are bracing for another kick in the teeth: fare hikes. Rail users could be looking at an increase of almost 3% in the cost of travel, based on inflation data set to be announced on Wednesday. Last month, a number of services were cancelled because of record temperatures, with many train ...

HODEIDAH / WAM The UAE, through its humanitarian arm, the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC), on Wednesday launched a strategic water project in Qataba in the Khawkhah District, Hodeidah Governorate, as part of its efforts to respond to the needs of people in Yemen’s Red Sea Coast. Mohamed Al Junaibi, Director of Humanitarian Affairs at the ERC in Yemen, stated that ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE and Saudi Arabia allocated 540,000 tonnes of wheat to the Sudanese people, meeting the population’s ba-sic food requirements for thr-ee months, announced Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) on Wednesday. ADFD Director-General Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi said, “The food security support provided to the Sudanese people is in line with the wise directives of ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The third batch of Emirati engineers and physicists completed their one-year intensive nuclear regulatory development progam at the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR). The graduates, comprising sev-en young Emiratis, will begin their nuclear career at the authority. During the year, developees gained fundamental training to underst-and technical concepts applicable to nuclear engineering, radiation safety ...