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NEW YORK / Bloomberg Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, long an optimist about the nation where he made his fortune, rejected the economic pessimism dominating the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and forcefully made the case for a bright future. “As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves ...

Santo Domingo /Bloomberg The Dominican Republic’s economy is likely to expand by about 6 percent this year as construction and tourism continue to buoy one of the fastest-growing countries in the region, President Danilo Medina said in his annual address to Congress. Medina, who’s up for re-election, said the country’s $64 billion economy will again outpace that of Latin America, ...

Bloomberg Senator Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi, paid $1.5 million in federal income taxes from 2011 through 2014 on adjusted gross income totaling more than $5 million, according to partial tax returns released in e-mails to reporters by the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign. The couple’s average federal tax rate over the four-year period was 29.9 percent. But because the ...

Buenos Aires / Bloomberg Argentina’s government agreed to raise state teachers’ salaries by an average of 32 percent, paving the way for broader wage negotiations across the country this year. State teachers will see their basic monthly salaries rise to 7,800 pesos ($505) from 6,060 pesos effective immediately, with a further increase to 8,500 pesos starting in July, according to ...

Caracas / AFP At a popular east Caracas bakery, customers can buy Spanish olive oil, Italian tomato sauce and even American chocolates. But bread? Forget it. Cardboard signs on the door warning of “No bread” have become increasingly common at Venezuelan bakeries. Venezuela gets 96 percent of its foreign currency from oil exports, and as crude prices have plunged, so ...

JEDDAH / Emirates Business Arqaam Capital, the specialist emerging markets Investment Bank, said in a strategy note issued ahead of Jeddah Economic Forum to be held on March 1-3 that Saudi Arabia’s plans to implement wide-ranging institutional changes to put its fiscal policy on a sustainable footing would give an unprecedented impetus to public-privatepartnerships’(PPPs) in the country. History suggests that ...

BLOOMBERG NorthStar Realty Finance Corp., a U.S. mortgage real estate investment trust, hired a division of UBS Group AG to advise on a potential recombination with NorthStar Asset Management Group Inc., the company from which it was spun off in 2014. The REIT’s board formed a special committee that will be composed of independent directors who aren’t also on the ...

Doha / Emirates Business Tightening its grip on engineering consultancies, the government has cancelled the licences of at least nine errant firms and detected 87 violations this year. The punished firms include A grade consultancies. There are still some consultancies with engineers not registered with authorities. A committee at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment licenses engineers and engineering consultancies. ...

Dubai / Emirates Business HMG Properties Group, one of the fastest growing real estate companies in the GCC, has announced that it has carried out a massive restructuring of its leadership team, to better focus on its core activities and increase profitability for the company. HMG Properties, which develops and sells luxury residential and commercial properties across the GCC, Egypt, ...

BEIJING / Bloomberg China Everbright Holdings Co. and a unit agreed to buy a commercial building in Hong Kong for HK$10 billion ($1.3 billion), adding to the number of Chinese companies mopping up real estate in the world’s most expensive office market. They are buying Dah Sing Financial Centre, a top-tier office building in the Wan Chai district, which will ...