Politics

SYDNEY / AP Australia’s government warned on Thursday that terrorists may be in the advanced stages of preparing attacks in Indonesia, and urged travelers to exercise a high level of caution when visiting the southeast Asian nation, including the popular tourist island of Bali. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued the travel advisory, which said only that there ...

BEIJING / AP China’s Defense Ministry says the commander of US forces in the Pacific smeared China while seeking additional defense funding from Congress. Ministry spokesman Col. Wu Qian on Thursday strongly criticized Adm. Harry Harris Jr.’s testimony before Congress this week, in which Harris said China was militarizing the South China Sea. Wu said he understood Harris was seeking ...

Brussels / AFP NATO on Thursday overcame sharp differences between long-time rivals Greece and Turkey to finalise an unprecedented mission to tackle migrant smugglers in the Aegean Sea. US-led NATO launched the operation two weeks ago, aiming to help the EU cope with its worst migrant crisis since World War II, but longstanding disputes between Athens and Ankara over Aegean ...

Bloomberg With no wins to show after the first four contests in the Republican presidential primary, Marco Rubio’s supporters are growing nervous that their candidate’s chances of becoming the party’s nominee may already be slipping way. “He’s got to do something, he’s got to stir up the mix a bit,” said Steve Hosheinz, a 55-year-old accountant from Houston who was ...

Hong Kong / Agencies Rising political turmoil in Hong Kong could hurt economic growth in the freewheeling southern Chinese business hub, the city’s finance chief, John Tsang said as he unveiled measures on Wednesday to counter the impact of global weakness. Tsang warned that political unrest would “unavoidably” damage the economy after riots rocked the city earlier this month, predicting ...

PUERTO RICO / Bloomberg Puerto Rico’s debt exchange isn’t the only security swap for investors burned by the island’s financial collapse. Franklin Resources Inc. plans to close the $147 million Double Tax-Free Income Fund, whose strategy of plowing more of its assets into Puerto Rico than any other municipal-bond fund turned it into one of the worst performers. After the ...

Bloomberg Man Group Plc, the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund firm, reported 17 percent lower profit in 2015 after performance-fee revenues and margins dropped. The shares fell the most in nearly six months. Adjusted pretax profit fell to $400 million from $481 million a year earlier, the London-based company said in a statement on Wednesday. That missed the $455 ...

Bloomberg As the dot-com bubble burst, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the last firewall between the U.S. economy and a recession is consumer confidence. Given the market’s plunge this year, will it hold now? So far, so good. The risk facing the U.S. is that falling stock prices cause people to start worrying about their finances, and they spend ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s dominating victory in the Nevada caucuses pushes him further out ahead of his nearest competitors for the Republican presidential nomination, giving his unorthodox candidacy a major boost heading into Super Tuesday contests next week. The real estate mogul and political newcomer now has won in the Northeast, the South and the West by riding a wave of ...

Washington / AFP China has deployed fighter jets to the same contested island in the South China Sea to which it also has sent surface-to-air missiles, US officials said. Citing two unnamed US officials, Fox News said US intelligence services had spotted Chinese Shenyang J-11 and Xian JH-7 warplanes on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel Islands chain over the ...