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DUBAI / WAM The government’s policies, programmes and services should contribute towards building a positive and happy community, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said. Sheikh Mohammed said the government’s main task is to ensure that conditions are conducive for delivering happiness to individuals, families and employees and promoting ...

Bloomberg Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s struggle for political survival is spilling into the streets, after the latest chapter in a sweeping corruption probe escalated tension in Latin America’s largest country. Following police questioning on Friday of Rousseff’s predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva into allegations of bribes for favors, friends and foes of the government have started to mobilize in ...

Bloomberg Watching the development of India, there’s often an assumption the country will follow China’s path. For commodity exports, China “is not the only game in town,” Australia’s resources minister Josh Frydenberg said in a speech last month, citing forecasts of India’s burgeoning demand for power, steel, and coal. Here’s one area where the two countries could scarcely be more ...

Bloomberg Just as Moody’s Investors Service warns of the strain on China’s finances of debt among state-owned enterprises, the companies are loading up on record overseas loans to buy assets around the world. China National Chemical Corp., or ChemChina, got $50 billion in such financing for its $43 billion purchase of Swiss pesticides producer Syngenta AG, including $35 billion that’s ...

Bloomberg Mark Carney’s scope to sidestep “Brexit” is dwindling. With a referendum on Britain’s European Union membership looming, the Bank of England governor has spent months trying to skirt the highly charged debate. An appearance before lawmakers this week may throw him right in, as happened in the buildup to the Scottish independence vote when his comments were hijacked by ...

Bloomberg Few Finns probably thought that adopting the euro would mean more work for less pay. Yet trade unions are now getting ready to sign off on a deal that will cut workers’ income and raise working hours. Unveiled last week, it’s designed to boost competitiveness as the Nordic nation struggles within the constraints of the euro zone. The board ...

Flint / AFP With the Democratic presidential nomination in sight, Hillary Clinton sought to repel sharp attacks from party rival Bernie Sanders, while training some fire on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. “Donald Trump’s bigotry, his bullying, his bluster are not going to wear well on the American people,” Clinton said in a sometimes testy debate with Sanders sponsored by CNN ...

Bloomberg Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico started coalition talks after Saturday’s inconclusive elections, which cost him his majority in parliament, saw two nationalist groups win seats in the assembly, and raised the potential of a repeat vote. Fico’s Smer party won 28.3 percent, below the 44 percent he scored in a 2012 ballot. Voters elected seven other parties into the ...

Brussels / AFP EU leaders held a summit with Turkey’s prime minister on Monday in order to back closing the Balkans migrant route and urge Ankara to accept deportations of large numbers of economic migrants from overstretched Greece. The European Union is hardening its stance in a bid to defuse the worst refugee crisis since World War II by increasingly ...

HONG KONG / Bloomberg Hong Kong residential home sales plunged 70 percent in February from a year earlier to a 25-year low, as falling prices and economic uncertainty deterred buyers. Last month, 1,807 homes were sold in Hong Kong, compared with 6,027 a year earlier, according to government statistics. Home sales fell from 2,045 in January, the data show. “The ...