The Hague / AFP Britain’s vote to leave the EU has caused uncertainty in Europe and will impact The Netherlands including causing job losses, Dutch King Willem-Alexander said on Tuesday. Giving his traditional speech marking the opening of parliament — written by Prime Minister Mark Rutte and his cabinet — the king said the internationally-focused Dutch economy faced its ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German chemicals giant Bayer said it had increased its earnings and profits forecasts after signing a deal to take over US seeds and pesticides maker Monsanto. “We are optimistic for the medium-term development of Bayer and have set ourselves correspondingly ambitious targets,” chief executive Werner Baumann said in a statement. In the crop science division that ...

  Warsaw/ AFP Poland’s populist government on Tuesday suspended a new tax on supermarkets that targetted foreign-owned chains just a day after the European Union opened a probe into whether it violated competition rules. Announcing the suspension in Warsaw, Poland’s Finance Minister Pawel Szalamacha told reporters the EU investigation was “arbitrary and political”, launched “under pressure from large corporations.” Warsaw ...

  Paris / AFP France said on Tuesday it was sticking to its economic growth forecasts for this year and next, seen by some economists as too optimistic. In its 2017 budget draft law, the finance ministry said projected expansion would allow France to cut its deficit to below three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 as required ...

  London / AFP GlaxoSmithKline on Tuesday appointed Emma Walmsley, its head of consumer healthcare, to lead the British drugs giant and develop new treatments in a fast-consolidating sector. Walmsley, 47, succeeds outgoing chief executive Andrew Witty, who is retiring early next year after almost a decade at the helm. Walmsley, who joined GSK from French cosmetics giant L’Oreal six ...

  Bloomberg Petroleo Brasileiro SA reduced investments by 25 percent and is accelerating asset disposals in its latest business plan as it downsizes to withstand low international oil prices amid Brazil’s deepest two-year recession on record. The 2017-2021 plan, the first drafted under Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente, focuses on accelerating debt reduction and retreating from peripheral businesses such as ...

  Aleppo / AFP The United Nations suspended all humanitarian convoys in Syria on Tuesday following a deadly air strike on aid trucks, as fighting intensified after the regime declared an end to a week-long truce. Both Syria and Russia denied they were behind the raid on the convoy near northern city Aleppo, which the Red Cross said killed “around ...

  Geneva / AFP Fatalities among migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe could outstrip last year’s total even though total numbers fell in the first nine months of this year, the UN said on Tuesday. “The number of refugees and migrants reaching European shores this year passed the 300,000 mark today,” William Spindler, spokesman for the UN refugee agency ...

  Geneva / AFP Burundi’s government is behind systematic human rights violations, including executions and torture, UN investigators said on Tuesday, warning of possible crimes against humanity and the looming risk of “genocide”. “Gross human rights violations have and are taking place, committed primarily by state agents and those linked to them,” the investigators concluded in a report, adding that ...

  STOCKHOLM / AFP At least 20 countries are expected to formally join the Paris Agreement on climate change this week, greatly improving the pact’s chances of coming into force just a year after it was negotiated in the French capital, UN officials say. That’s considered a blistering pace in the world of international diplomacy, reflecting a sense of urgency in ...