PARIS / AP France’s presidency says that President Barack Obama will meet with French, British, Italian and German leaders in Hannover next week for discussions expected to touch on IS, Libya and migration. The statement released Wednesday gave few details except that Obama, French leader Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s David Cameron and Italy’s Matteo Renzi would ...

  Rome / AFP Austria will reintroduce controls along its border with Italy unless the migrant flow through the area is drastically reduced, Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz warned in an interview. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi last week insisted Italy was not facing an “invasion” after a spike in migrant boat crossings from Libya exacerbated fears it could become the ...

  Brussels / AFP NATO and Russia ran up against “profound disagreements” over Ukraine and other issues as their ambassadors met on Wednesday for the first time since 2014, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said. The two sides agreed to keep communicating following the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, which has been on ice since the alliance cut practical ties with ...

  Berlin / AFP Germany asked neighbouring Belgium on Wednesday to temporarily shutter two ageing nuclear plants near their border over safety concerns. Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks requested that the 40-year-old Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors be turned off “until the resolution of outstanding security issues”. The reactor pressure vessels at both sites have shown signs of metal degradation, ...

  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 ...

  Bloomberg Commerzbank AG Chief Executive Officer Martin Blessing said a “slow” first quarter will make it more difficult to achieve last year’s profit, just a month after the bank projected an increase in full-year earnings. “The result for the first three months is likely to be lower than in the previous quarter,” Blessing, 52, told shareholders at the annual ...

  Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) used open-market operations to inject the most funds in two weeks, helping meet a seasonal spike in demand for cash that also saw the central bank provide two rounds of medium-term loans within a week. The PBOC auctioned 90 billion yuan ($14 billion) of seven-day reverse-repurchase agreements on Tuesday, the most since ...

  New York / AFP Goldman Sachs reported a sharp decline in first-quarter earnings, but gave a fairly bullish outlook for the mergers and acquisitions business now that financial markets have stabilised. Earnings for the quarter ending March 31 were $1.2 billion, down 56.3 percent from the year-ago period. Revenues sank 40.3 percent to $6.3 billion. Nearly all of the big ...