Bloomberg The US officially ended its military presence in Afghanistan on Tuesday with the final flight out of Kabul, concluding two decades of American involvement touched off by the September 11 terrorist attacks. “I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals and vulnerable Afghans,” ...

Bloomberg Japan’s Defense Ministry is seeking a record $50 billion annual budget that would entail the largest percentage jump in spending in eight years as it seeks to bolster its capabilities amid simmering tensions with China. If granted in full, the 5.5 trillion yen budget request for the year starting in April would amount to a 2.6% increase on the ...

Bloomberg Angela Merkel took direct aim at efforts by Finance Minister Olaf Scholz to assume her mantle to help topple her conservative bloc in the September 26 election. Scholz, who has engineered an unlikely poll surge for his Social Democratic party to become the favorite for chancellor, has conducted an unsubtle campaign to project himself as the rightful successor of ...

Bloomberg China’s top leaders will meet in November to discuss party history and achievements, just as President Xi Jinping takes aim at the nation’s yawning wealth gap and crackdowns on the tech sector. The Communist Party’s highest decision making body, the Politburo, fixed the month for the sixth plenum, a gathering of the larger Central Committee, state broadcaster China Central ...

Bloomberg The engine of the German economy is turning into a brake in the face of a global supply crunch, threatening to derail the nation’s recovery. While its strong focus on manufacturing helped Europe’s largest economy fare better than its more service-heavy peers in the region during Covid-19 lockdowns, Germany’s rebound is now at risk as companies report shortages of ...

Bloomberg British companies are expecting to raise prices and boost wages amid the strongest business confidence in more than four years, according to a survey published on Tuesday. More than a third of firms anticipate increasing wages by at least 2%, reflecting labour shortages, and almost half plan price hikes, the latest Lloyds Business Barometer shows. Overall confidence rebounded to ...

Bloomberg Denmark will raise its 2021 economic growth forecast to 3.8% from 2.4% seen in May as the Nordic nation recovers faster than expected from the pandemic, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. The government will lower its 2022 gross domestic product growth estimate to 2.8% from 3.6% to reflect improved outlook in the 2021 base year, according to the ...

Bloomberg US consumer sentiment remained weak in late August amid ongoing concerns over inflation and the coronavirus pandemic. The University of Michigan’s final sentiment index falls to a near-decade low of 70.3 during the month from 81.2 in July, data showed. The figure was in line with the preliminary reading and just below the median estimate of 70.8 in a ...

Bloomberg Polish inflation surged to its highest level in two decades, piling pressure on policy makers to ditch their dovish stance and increase interest rates in the coming months. Consumer prices rise 5.4% from a year earlier in August, after a 5% increase in July, according to data. That exceeded the 5.1% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. The Monetary ...

Bloomberg Euro-area inflation jumped to the highest in a decade in August, testing policy makers’ insistence that a post-crisis spike in cost pressures should prove temporary. Consumer prices rise 3%, exceeding the predictions of all 37 economists in a Bloomberg survey. A measure of core inflation that strips out volatile items such as energy and food reached 1.6%, the highest ...