Bloomberg Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif suggested a show of respect from President Donald Trump could help yield a prisoner swap. “It is a possibility, certainly from a humanitarian perspective, but — but it requires a change of attitude,” Zarif told correspondent Margaret Brennan in an interview with CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that was expected to air in ...

Bloomberg Italy’s ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi flew in by helicopter, twice in a week. His less affluent allies and rivals took to their cars to brave the roads of the mountainous southern Molise area — it doesn’t have a motorway. Italy’s political leaders, from Matteo Salvini of the euroskeptic League to Luigi Di Maio of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, have ...

Bloomberg Interest rates are rising, making debt much more expensive for capital-intensive industries across America. But there’s at least one exception: the solar business. While the cost of borrowing has been increasing since 2016, some banks are taking a smaller cut to win deals from solar developers. Loans of seven years or longer can be obtained for 137.5 basis points ...

Bloomberg Australia may agree the final rules of its contentious National Energy Guarantee by August after winning cautious backing from states and territories for a policy the ruling Coalition hopes will end a decade of policy paralysis. Energy ministers from Australia’s six states and two territories signed off on a preliminary deal to back the scheme at a Council of ...

Bloomberg Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA won 140 megawatts of wind power orders in India from industrial companies building their own parks. Energy-intensive businesses from textile and drug makers to auto companies ordered a total of 70 turbines, the Spanish-German company said. The manufacturers across southern India will link the parks to local grids and tap power as needed. Regional ...

Bloomberg Oil explorers deployed more US rigs this week as increasingly tight crude supplies pushed prices to their highest since 2014. US working oil rigs rose by five this week to 820, the highest since March 2015, according to data from Baker Hughes. Since the end of January, the rig fleet has expanded in all but two weeks. An Energy ...

Bloomberg Three liquefied natural gas tankers sailed through the Panama Canal on the same day this week, marking a first for the newly expanded waterway and highlighting the booming global gas trade. All three ships — Gaslog Hong Kong, Gaslog Gibraltar and Clean Ocean — entered the canal on a staggered basis from the Pacific side and had completed their ...

Bloomberg US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he’s considering a trip to China amid a trade dispute with Beijing that finance chiefs warn could derail the global economic upswing. Mnuchin said he’s “cautiously optimistic” of reaching an agreement with China that bridges their differences over trade. “A trip is under consideration,” Mnuchin told reporters in Washington at the IMF’s spring ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s banks, blindsided by rising funding costs due to the city’s costly defense of its currency peg, are clamping down on popular fixed-rate mortgages. Bank of East Asia Ltd. is no longer accepting applications for these home loans “due to recent movements in interest rates,” the lender said in an emailed reply, more than two months before it ...

Bloomberg India’s ambition to build up its defense industry through a $250 billion program has sent shares of a state-owned metalmaker rocketing just days after a lukewarm trading debut. Mishra Dhatu Nigam Ltd., which makes specialty steel and is the country’s only producer of titanium alloys used in aerospace, has seen its market value surge 88 percent to 32 billion ...