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Sweden fights currency gains with more monetary stimulus

  Bloomberg Sweden’s central bank will buy more bonds to drive down longer yields as policy makers try to fight currency gains that threaten to undermine their efforts to rekindle inflation. The Riksbank kept its benchmark repo rate at minus 0.5 percent, it said on Thursday. The decision was expected by all 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. It will add ...

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Agriculture resurgent as soybeans top $10 on weather concerns

Bloomberg Soybeans extended a rally above $10 a bushel, the highest price since July, and corn traded near $4 a bushel as unfavourable weather in South America and prospects for improved demand for U.S. supplies bolstered agriculture markets. Dryness in Brazil is causing conditions to deteriorate for its second corn crop, and the country suspended import tariffs for the next ...

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Canadian lumber producers tumble amid slow US housing recovery

  Bloomberg West Fraser Timber Co. and Canfor Corp., Canada’s largest lumber producers, are suffering from tepid demand in the U.S. where the recovery in the housing market is stuttering. U.S. housing starts fell a more-than-expected 8.8 percent last month, the Commerce Department said April 19. Housing demand isn’t strong enough to support lumber prices at current levels, according to ...

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Obama seeks Gulf help against IS

  Riyadh / AFP US President Barack Obama met Gulf leaders in Saudi Arabia on Thursday to push for an intensified campaign against the IS group, despite strains in ties with Washington. Making what is likely his final presidential visit to America’s historic allies, Obama posed for a summit photo with the six regional leaders, including Saudi King Salman, before ...

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China asks Indonesia to extradite Uighur prisoners

  JAKARTA / AP China has asked Indonesia to extradite four Uighur men in exchange for returning a graft fugitive recently arrested in Shanghai, the top Indonesian security minister said on Thursday. Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan said Indonesia will allow China to question the men, who are serving prison sentences for collaborating with Indonesia’s ...

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Russia maintains ‘considerable military’ in Syria: Stoltenberg

  Ankara / AFP Russia has kept a considerable military presence in conflict-torn Syria to bolster the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. “Despite the announced partial withdrawal we see that Russia maintains a considerable military presence in support of the Assad regime in Syria,” he said at a press conference in Turkey. ...

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