Bloomberg U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne dropped a plan to overhaul pension tax relief after pressure from industry groups and fellow Conservative lawmakers. Osborne last year studied whether to scrap some pension giveaways and was predicted to flesh out plans in his March 16 budget, only to be warned off amid concerns it would hurt affluent voters. The ...

Bloomberg With talk swirling about the Norwegian interest rate heading to zero, the nation’s finance minister is confident its banks can withstand the added pressure to their balance sheets. “The Norwegian banking system is very robust and has been able to adjust quickly to the new demands in regulatory framework,” Siv Jensen said in Oslo. “They are robust enough to ...

Bloomberg Easing anxiety over Britain’s potential exit from the European Union may be complemented next week by signs of a stronger U.K. economy, supporting the pound further after its best week since 2009 against the dollar. Britain’s currency recovered from its steepest weekly decline versus the greenback in more than seven years as a report Friday showed wage-growth in the ...

Bloomberg It’s not only European Central Bank stimulus that has the potential to hurt the euro. From the possibility that Britain might leave the European Union and the impact of refugees flooding the region, to concerns over the economic outlook and political turmoil in Ireland as well as Spain, the euro is facing a slew of hazards. Set alongside economists’ ...

Beirut / AP A shaky cease-fire in Syria brokered by Moscow and Washington has survived its first week, outlasting skeptics’ expectations and providing some hope that a diplomatic solution to the five-year-old war might be possible. With daily incidents of artillery shelling, airstrikes and clashes, it would be easy to dismiss the “cessation of hostilities” as a charade. But the ...

Istanbul / AFP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested building a new city in northern Syria to house some of the millions of refugees escaping the country’s civil war, reports said on Saturday. Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul that the new city would be located near the Turkish border and said he had even discussed the idea ...

Beirut / AP Lebanon’s trash collection crisis, which sent thousands protesting into the streets last summer, is now in its eight month with still no resolution in sight. Though it has prompted political debates and occasional heated discussions, Lebanese doctors and medical professionals are increasingly alarmed by its effect on health. At the emergency room at the Sacre Coeur hospital ...

Istanbul / AFP Turkish authorities were on Saturday in control of a newspaper staunchly opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after using tear gas and water cannon to seize its headquarters in a dramatic raid that raised fresh alarm over declining media freedoms. Police fired the tear gas and water cannon just before midnight on Friday at a hundreds-strong crowd ...

AL ISSAWIYAH / AP In this Syrian mountain village perched above the Mediterranean, residents say they have enjoyed a measure of peace, even though they live near a border that has seen escalating tensions in recent months between Turkey and Russia. The villagers, most of whom are members of Syria’s Turkmen ethnic minority, have formed their own militia, but they ...

It is here in the industrial Midwest, not in the South, where Ted Cruz’s audacious theory of the 2016 race was supposed to be put to one of its most important tests. Michigan’s primary on Tuesday — and especially what happens that day in the Detroit suburbs that in 1980 were ground zero for a new political species, “Reagan Democrats” ...