Bloomberg Spain will raise its minimum wage by an inflation-busting 8% after the government and unions struck a deal, brushing aside calls from business groups to refrain from increases at a time of economic uncertainty. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who faces a battle for reelection this year, has faced fierce opposition on the issue from industry lobby groups, which had ...

  Bloomberg UK house prices fell for a fifth month in January, the longest string of declines since the financial crisis more than a decade ago, Nationwide Building Society said Wednesday. The mortgage lender said average home costs fell 0.6% this month and by a revised 0.3% in December, steeper than its previous estimate. The monthly decline was also more ...

Bloomberg Peru’s inflation is forecast to have jumped to the highest level in a quarter century as official data start to reflect the damage wrought by two months of social unrest and highway blockades. The January report, due to be published Wednesday at 10 a.m. local time by the national statistics agency, is attracting greater-than-usual interest as economists try to ...

  Bloomberg The US and its allies Canada, the UK and Australia have imposed fresh sanctions on Myanmar, adding to pressure on the military regime, two years since it overthrew the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Tuesday the US restrictions target six individuals and ...

  Bloomberg Russia is breaching the terms of the New START nuclear-arms reduction treaty by refusing to allow inspectors on its territory and stonewalling US efforts to discuss the issue, the State Department said. The department said in a statement that the Russian refusal “prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of ...

  Bloomberg Georgia’s president said Russia must be required to abandon its nearly 15-year-long occupation of her nation’s territory as part of an eventual peace deal to end the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. “Russia has to learn where its borders are,” President Salome Zourabichvili said in an interview in the capital, Tbilisi. “The Georgian issues should be on the table ...

Bloomberg Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong warned about the risk of conflict in the Indo-Pacific as she prepares to meet her British counterpart for defense talks that will likely focus on regional issues including China’s military expansion. Speaking on Tuesday before joining Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles for two days of annual bilateral talks with their British counterparts, Wong said ...

  Bloomberg The speaker of Czech parliament said she will visit Taiwan, a day after China lashed out at the nation’s president elect for saying he favored a stronger partnership with Taiwan. Marketa Pekarova Adamova said she talked to Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on Wednesday about her visit planned for March. Just a day earlier, China called comments made ...

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG plans to shift an asset management business that helps buyout firms raise funds to its First Boston spinout as the firm works to reshape its investment bank after losses. Internal discussions are taking place on moving the Private Funds Group, co-headed by David Klein in the US and Michael Murphy in London, to First ...

  Bloomberg Europe’s largest banks kicked off earnings season with pledges to return more than $12 billion to shareholders, following an interest rate bonanza that’s bolstering lenders from Milan to Stockholm. UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers vowed to return more than $6.7 billion to shareholders this year, after income from lending to wealthy clients surged in the ...