Brasília / AFP Brazil’s Supreme Court was due to rule on Wednesday on whether former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can take up his post as chief advisor to embattled President Dilma Rousseff. The top panel’s decision is expected just days after lawmakers overwhelmingly authorized impeachment proceedings against Rousseff, plunging Brazil into deep political crisis. Rousseff had named ...

  London / AFP US President Barack Obama will be thrust into the eye of a boisterous British debate over European Union membership when he touches down in London on Thursday for a royal-filled visit. The US president’s four-day trip—perhaps his last to Britain before leaving office next year—comes ahead of a June 23 referendum when Britons will be asked ...

  Bloomberg Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s largest mortgage lender, has tightened criteria for home loans to foreigners just as the central bank warned buying by Chinese posed an ‘indirect risk’. Commonwealth Bank, which accounts for one in every four mortgages in the country, will no longer approve applications that cite self-employed foreign income, it said in a note ...