Bloomberg UK services activity grew more than expected in February, supporting economic growth and keeping alive the prospect of an interest-rate increase within months. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Managers Index for the biggest part of the economy jumped to 54.5— a four-month high—from 53 in January. That’s well above the 53.3 reading forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey. The report ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks with top aides to South Korea’s Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang on Monday, the president’s office said, in the first meeting between the leader of the isolated nation and officials from Seoul since he took power in 2011. National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon were ...

TEHRAN / Reuters France’s foreign minister visited Iran on Monday on a delicate mission to affirm Europe’s support for a nuclear deal that opened Iran’s economy while echoing US concern about Tehran’s missile programme and role in regional conflicts. Jean-Yves Le Drian aims to save the 2015 nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump has threatened to quit unless European ...

Bloomberg Slovakia’s political turmoil worsened as the premier rebuffed a call from the country’s president to hold early elections as a way out a crisis that erupted when the murder of journalist sparked public protests. The conflict increases pressure on Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of Europe’s longest serving leaders who has taken Slovakia into the euro zone but has ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters Guatemala will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May, two days after the US embassy makes the same move, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said at a conference in Washington. “I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right,” Morales ...

Bloomberg Foreign travel is the first thing that comes to mind when Malian lettuce farmer Moussa Samake thinks about President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Nicknamed “the carrier pigeon” for his frequent trips abroad, Keita, 73, is expected to seek re-election in July after a five-year term marred by growing insecurity in the landlocked West African nation. His failure to halt a ...

Steel tariffs work! That is, when President George W. Bush levied tariffs of 8 percent to 30 percent on steel imports in March 2002, it did seem to have a detectable positive impact on steel industry employment. For about a year after the tariff was imposed, steel industry employment stopped falling. Yay! Then the decline resumed amid a brewing global ...

Smug in the belief that their own payment apps would be enough to take on the threat from mobile, India’s banks underestimated the risk to their lucrative cards business. A recent Bernstein survey has some sobering news for them: They may have already lost Bollywood, and they can’t hope to win the neighbourhood grocer. Almost 30 percent of tickets in ...

Fintech startups have long had trouble turning feel-good rhetoric into profitable growth. Competition is intense, consumers tend to want things for free, and dinosaur banks are far from extinct. To make matters worse, finance just isn’t as addictive as messaging or catching up with friends. That counts in an era where billions are made through monetizing attention. Enter, Bitcoin. Back ...

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s long-awaited speech on Brexit last week was admirably frank, impressively argued — and about 18 months too late. As it is, the country’s choices remain now just as they were before her address to the nation: Britain either stops this process in its tracks, or must prepare itself for dire consequences. May was right to ...