Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc can finally start to move beyond its woes in India. The London-based lender is set to receive a $2.1 billion repayment in the next few weeks from Essar Global, the steel-to-power conglomerate that’s been one of its most problematic borrowers in the country, people with knowledge of the matter said. Standard Chartered may be able ...

  Bloomberg Banks should be given three to five years until new accounting rules for loan losses have an impact on regulatory capital, according to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Accounting standards that require banks to set aside money for expected bad-loan losses will enter into force in 2018 in most of the world, and in 2020 in the ...

  Dubai / Reuters Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) swung to a third-quarter net loss, it reported late on Tuesday, as the Gulf Arab state’s third-largest lender by assets was forced to set aside more cash to cover bad loans. The results, the first since the appointment of former Australia and New Zealand Banking Group banker Joseph Abraham as chief ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Uganda lowered its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 13 percent, saying slowing inflation gave it room to support flagging growth. Two of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the reduction, while one expected policy makers to keep the benchmark rate at 14 percent. The monetary policy committee has cut the rate by ...

  Dubai / AFP A modest recovery in oil prices falls short of filling budgetary gaps in crude-exporting Gulf countries, the International Monetary Fund said, stressing the need to cut spending. The price of the region’s main commodity has partially rebounded and is hovering around $50 per barrel having hit a 10-year low of less than $30 in January, from ...

  Qayyarah / AFP Iraqi forces prepared to retake the country’s largest Christian town from the IS group on Wednesday, a key milestone in their progress towards the extremists’ main hub of Mosul. News of the move to recapture Qaraqosh sparked jubilation among Christians who had fled the town, with many dancing and singing in the city of Arbil. Launched on ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia has accused Belgium, a member of a US-led coalition fighting extremists in Syria, of killing six civilians in air strikes in the Aleppo region but the claim was swiftly denied by Brussels. “Six people were killed and four people injured to various degrees as a result of bombing that destroyed two homes” in the village of ...

  Moscow / AFP Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by telephone with the leaders of Turkey and Iraq about battle for Mosul, where Iraqi forces are fighting to oust the IS group, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Putin “wished the Iraqi army and its allies complete success in their objectives,” the Kremlin said in a statement on his conversations with Turkish ...

  Aden / AFP Heavy fighting rocked Yemen hours before a UN-brokered ceasefire was due to begin on Wednesday, as warring parties come under mounting pressure to end a conflict that has raged for more than two years. The truce will be the sixth attempt to end the bloodshed. Civilians have paid the highest price in a country that was ...

  Donetsk / AFP Thousands of pro-Russian rebels and supporters in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday turned out to bid farewell to notorious rebel commander Arseny Pavlov, who was killed in a weekend bombing. Some 5,000 people queued outside Donetsk’s opera theatre to pay last respects to the 33-year-old Russian, known as “Motorola”, who died Sunday when a homemade device exploded ...