Looking at photographs of the ruined, desolate streets of what was once the IS’s capital of Raqqa is a reminder of the overwhelming, pitilessly effective military power of the United States. Perhaps it’s a tribute to the inevitable nature of American force, once it’s engaged, that the fall of Raqqa this week provoked so little public discussion. Commentators focused on ...

Remember this when you see your Netflix bill rising: It has to be this way. The company has recently warned price increases are coming for many subscribers in the US and other countries. It’s happening because Netflix Inc. has been spending a small fortune to supply homes with entertainment —such as ‘Narcos’ and ‘Stranger Things’—that it creates itself, owns and ...

UK supermarket giant Tesco Plc announced this week it will buy back up to 700 million pounds ($921.6 million) of its outstanding debt across a series of its bonds — and then cancel it. Yields fell sharply on the news. This should surely send a clear signal to rating companies that it is on the path back to an investment ...

“A triumph of peace and democracy.” That’s how Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro described his government’s implausible victory in last weekend’s gubernatorial elections. In fact, it is a further hardening of the soft autocracy that used to be South America’s richest democracy. Maduro’s government entered the polls with an approval rate of about 24 percent in a collapsed economy with inflation ...

What would America’s abortion policy be if the number of months in the gestation of a human infant were a prime number — say, seven or eleven? This thought experiment is germane to why the abortion issue has been politically toxic, and points to a path toward a less bitter debate. The House of Representatives has for a third time ...

Axis Bank Ltd. has been caught lying again. On October 17, the Indian lender reported that the central bank wasn’t happy with its classification of nine large corporate accounts as standard assets. As a result, the non-state-owned bank, the country’s sixth-largest by market value, has decided to rebrand the entire $750 million as nonperforming (NPAs). It’s the second time this ...

Australia’s record of 26 years without a recession flatters to deceive. The gaudy numbers mask serious flaws in the country’s economic model. First and most obviously, the Australian economy is still far too dependent on “houses and holes.” During part of the typical business cycle, national income and prosperity are driven by exports of commodities — primarily iron ore, liquefied ...

Reuters Dubai’s leading real estate developer, Emaar Properties, pulled the emirate’s stock index lower on Sunday while Saudi Arabia’s index again retreated from major technical resistance. The Dubai index lost 0.8 percent to 3,644 points, pulling back from resistance on the August peak of 3,681. Emaar slid 2.1 percent after saying it expected to sell 20 percent of its local ...

Bloomberg Oil investors are back in the ring. Hedge funds are finding betting on West Texas Intermediate crude more attractive again, with total positioning on the US benchmark increasing to the highest in almost a year. The surge comes as oil prices have held steady above $50 a barrel—a key psychological level—for about two weeks. “In general, people are more ...

Bloomberg New Zealand reminded currency traders this week of the power of politics to roil financial markets. The challenge is to figure out which world capital — from Tokyo to Washington — will deliver the next jolt. The kiwi tumbled as much as 2 percent and extended those losses as the opposition Labour Party won enough support in parliament to ...