Opinion

  Compared with the US last year, European nations that face hotly-contested elections in 2017 aren’t seeing a major fake news explosion. In the Netherlands, where elections are scheduled for March 15, Geert Wilders’ nationalist Freedom Party is the front-runner. Wilders was recently caught out in a fake news scandal: He tweeted a Photoshopped image of a rival party leader …

  The New York Times reported on Sunday that one of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Michael Cohen, attempted to deliver a sealed proposal for crafting a Ukraine peace accord — and lifting Russian sanctions — to then National Security Adviser Michael Flynn shortly before Flynn resigned. Cohen disputed a portion of the Times’ account in an interview with Washington Post reporters, …

  With a disappointing buyback in the cards, shares of HSBC Holdings Plc may struggle to continue their ascent. It’s time for the London-headquartered bank to deliver on revenue growth and profitability. Stock in the lender that makes almost two-thirds of its money from Asia has risen 60 percent in London over the past 12 months. Like rival Standard Chartered …

  By one measure, President Donald Trump’s immigration policy is one-third as harsh as his predecessor’s — but it has generated at least as much if not more controversy. This is unfortunate, both because this particular controversy is unjustified and because it distracts from bigger problems. Federal agents made 680 arrests in a series of immigration raids recently, sparking shock …

  At present, it seems nobody can say for sure what would be the impact of Brexit on UK economy. The issue has always elicited mixed opinions. Prior to June 23 referendum, many economic and market experts had predicted an immediate and significant impact on British economy. But the economy defied forecast and grew by 6% between July and September, …

  French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen unsettled investors with her pledge to pull France out of the euro and re-denominate all French debt in newly minted francs. Polls suggest Le Pen won’t get the chance; she is expected to lose a second-round runoff. Even if polls are correct this time, that doesn’t mean the euro is safe. In fact, …

  Unilever was all smiles when Kraft Heinz Co. abandoned its attempt to buy the U.K. consumer company for $143 billion. In an unusual joint statement, the two companies referred to their “high regard” for each other. This isn’t how bitterly contested takeover situations normally end. The Anglo-Dutch consumer giant must have wanted to end things amicably — or at …

  Even before Donald Trump took office, the calls for boycotts began. “@Amazon we are not shopping with you until u pull all Trump merchandise,” one woman wrote on Twitter in November. Another tweeted: “I’ll NEVER buy @LLBean for my daughter EVER AGAIN. I won’t support any1 that Trump does. Change UR ethics.” These weren’t isolated incidents. For months, a …

  Across Asia, the world has supposedly been witnessing the return of the strongman. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been grasping more and more control in his own hands since claiming power in 2012. Two years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”) in Indonesia won office by selling themselves as forceful economic …

  Monday’s meeting of European finance ministers looks like the last chance for some form of agreement on the next leg of Greece’s 86 billion euro ($91.4 billion) bailout, before Dutch and French election complicate negotiations. Anything can still go wrong with seemingly unsolvable differences between the European authorities, the International Monetary Fund, and the Greeks. The worries are certainly …