Jakarta / AFP A group of Indonesian “cyber warriors” sit glued to screens, as they send out messages promoting a moderate form of Islam in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country. Armed with laptops and smartphones, some 500 members of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)— one of the world’s biggest Muslim organisations—are seeking to counter the Islamic State group’s extremist ...

  The Internal Revenue Service has just released its latest estimate of the “tax gap” – the difference between what Americans pay in taxes and what they actually owe. For the years 2008 to 2010 (the IRS’s latest data), the annual gap averaged a huge $458 billion. It’s surely higher now. Gulp. If everyone religiously paid every penny owed, budget ...

  Jean-Michel Paul For those feeling sympathy for the European Central Bank, which has pretty much been on its own in trying to stimulate demand in the absence of government fiscal policy and investment, a ray of hope emerged. In Korea. South Korea is not doing badly, mind you. The country is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation ...

  An apparent environmental disaster off Vietnam’s central coastal region, estimated by some as one of the country’s worst ever toxic spills, represents newly appointed Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s first big political test. How Phuc strikes a balance between foreign investor interests and local community rights in handling the case will set an early precedent for his government’s policy ...

  Bloomberg Singapore’s biggest banks are in talks about setting up a system for sharing information on prospective clients, in an effort to combat money laundering in the city-state. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Oversea-Chinese Bank Corp. and United Overseas Bank Ltd. are exploring the possibility of a countrywide model for anti-money laundering and enhanced client knowledge, according to Loretta Yuen, ...

  Reuters New Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) Governor Ahmed al-Kholifey said his main priority is to maintain monetary stability and support the government’s Vision 2030 economic reforms, Al Sharq Al Awsat newspaper reported on Sunday. Kholifey was appointed on Saturday in succession to Fahd al-Mubarak. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Saturday appointed Ahmed al-Kholifey Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority Governor, ...

  Bloomberg Commerzbank AG said it’s handed German tax authorities an interim report on possible tax-minimising trades and is preparing a final assessment. The bank is in “close communication” with officials, spokeswoman Margarita Thiel said an in e-mailed statement. The report concerns so-called cum-ex stock trades made since 2003. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that Commerzbank had received information about illegitimate ...

  BLOOMBERG National Bank of Canada fell in Toronto trading after saying it will set aside C$195 million ($152 million) to cover soured oil-and-gas loans in the second quarter, joining Canadian Western Bank in providing an early warning of rising credit losses tied to energy. Shares of the country’s sixth-largest lender slid 1.8 percent to C$41.75, the worst performance in ...

  BLOOMBERG Bank of America Corp.’s Will Abbott, head of equities for Russia, stepped down after three years at the lender, according to two people familiar with his departure. Abbott, who joined the bank in 2013 from Renaissance Capital, is moving to a role outside investment banking, according to one person, who asked not to identified because the information is ...

  Bloomberg Nicholas Sossidis and Stephen Partridge-Hicks, the bankers who created the model for Structured Investment Vehicles (SIV) that later collapsed during the global financial crisis, are back. Sossidis and Partridge-Hicks own First Global Trust Bank (FGTB) Plc, a London-based firm that was authorised to provide banking services a month ago after a three-year approval process, UK Companies House and ...