Bloomberg Carmakers are discovering there are limits when it comes to influencing European Union climate policy. A decade after the EU crafted its first caps on carbon dioxide from autos by heeding manufacturers’ calls to go easy, the bloc will likely ignore similar pleas regarding the next set of proposed reduction targets. Slated for 2025 and 2030, these limits will ...
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Britain’s post-crisis pay squeeze saved 800,000 jobs: Report
Bloomberg The UK’s painful pay squeeze in the aftermath of the financial crisis helped save 800,000 jobs, according to new research. A report published by the Resolution Foundation showed that real average earnings in the UK fell by about 7 percent between 2009 and 2014, the equivalent of a 1 billion-pound ($1.3 billion) weekly wage loss. Still, that pain saved ...
Read More »EU says Italy must comply with rules
Bloomberg European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on Italy to redouble its fiscal efforts to avoid deviating from the goals agreed to with Brussels, saying the government in Rome has already enjoyed concessions on spending. The commission “has to look out for the observation of the rules, and in the case of Italy we have introduced lines of flexibility in ...
Read More »44,000 managers qualify for buyout offer: Verizon
Bloomberg Verizon Communications Inc. is offering buyout packages to as many as 44,000 management employees as part of a cost-cutting drive, potentially eliminating more than a fourth of its workforce. The offer, which excludes executives in sales or crucial company roles, is part of a four-year, $10 billion cost-reduction program that Chairman Lowell McAdam put in place last year. A ...
Read More »US economy not bright enough to offset global growth slowing
Bloomberg The US boom won’t be enough to stop the rest of the world economy from slowing. Finance ministers and central bankers head to Indonesia next week for the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting, with the lender signalling it will cut its global growth forecasts for the first time in two years after the best upswing since 2011. That’s despite ...
Read More »Bitterly divided Brazilians start voting with democracy at stake
Bloomberg Brazilians are putting their young democracy to a political stress test, going to the polls deeply divided after years of corruption and recession have pummeled faith in their institutions. The 147 million voters in Latin America’s largest economy have from 8 am until 5 pm on Sunday to cast ballots for a new president as well as most state ...
Read More »Populist surge fails to dislodge Latvia’s pro-Western parties
Bloomberg A populist surge wasn’t enough to dislodge the pro-Western centrist parties that have ruled Latvia for more than 25 years. While the governing coalition lost ground at elections on Saturday, Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis said newly formed parties with similar ideologies can join to represent a majority in parliament. That would once again lock out the Russia-leaning Harmony, which ...
Read More »Pompeo says ‘progress’ made after meeting N Korea’s Kim
Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo reported progress on Sunday after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang amid high expectations that he can resolve details over a second summit with President Donald Trump. Pompeo returned to Seoul and was meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, with a written statement possible, according to the Blue House. ...
Read More »May sells post-Brexit plan to Labour backers
Bloomberg Theresa May is taking her message direct to the opposition. Days after she danced on stage and promised better times ahead for her Conservative Party members, the UK prime minister took the rare step of writing in the Observer newspaper to entice wavering Labour supporters over to her camp. John McDonnell, who would lead economic policy if Labour came ...
Read More »Nigeria’s opposition picks Abubakar to battle Buhari
Bloomberg Nigeria’s main opposition party nominated former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its candidate to challenge President Muhammadu Buhari in February’s elections in Africa’s biggest oil producer. Abubakar, 71, won the People’s Democratic Party’s primaries with 1,532 votes, Ifeanyi Okowa, chairman of the nomination convention committee and governor of Delta state, said on Sunday in the oil hub of Port ...
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