Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May needs to boost her appeal and win over young voters at her party’s annual conference next week in a push to revitalise her flagging premiership after a disastrous election in June. May is trying to persuade critics inside her Conservative Party to let her stay on as leader, as her allies fear she faces …

Bloomberg Russia denied assertions by neighbouring Ukraine that most Russian troops taking part in large-scale war games this month on NATO’s eastern border remained in Belarus after the exercises ended. “As far as the Russian troops which took part in the joint strategic exercises, Zapad 2017, they all returned to their permanent bases,” Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on …

Bloomberg Voters in Lesotho began casting ballots on Saturday in elections for national assembly members in three constituencies and for local government leaders across the landlocked southern African nation. Voting began in the parliamentary constituencies of Hololo, Thupa-kubu and Teyateyaneng, where candidates died before general elections on June 3. More than 1.2 million voters were also expected to cast ballots …

Bloomberg The US is communicating with North Korea about its nuclear programme and testing Pyongyang’s appetite for negotiations, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the first public acknowledgment by a senior administration official of direct contact on the matter. Tillerson, speaking to reporters on Saturday after meeting Chinese officials in Beijing, insisted that the US would never accept a …

Bloomberg The authorities in western Cameroon have banned public meetings in the mainly English-speaking region before planned demonstrations on Sunday to demand independence from the rest of the largely Francophone nation. The protests in the Southwest and Northwest regions have been called by a group known as Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia Governing Council. Activists plan to hoist blue and white Ambazonia flags …

Bloomberg President Donald Trump, under rising criticism for the federal response to hurricane-damaged Puerto Rico, swung from defending his administration’s approach to lashing out at the San Juan mayor for her “poor leadership ability.” The president, in a series of Saturday morning tweets, said Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, “who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been …

LONDON / Reuters Saudi Arabia plans to further open up its stock market to foreign investors later this year as it seeks to become an international capital markets hub, Mohammed Abdullah Elkuwaiz, chairman of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) said. Qualified foreign institutions (QFIs) were allowed to begin investing directly in Saudi stocks in 2015 and qualification requirements were eased …

Emirates Business Souqplace.com, the first Emirati online marketplace in the UAE, connecting quality SMEs and artisan products, in addition to branded ones to consumers, announces the expansion of its platform to Saudi Arabia. Capitalizing on the upward growth of e-commerce in the UAE and the support it has received over the period of two years, the Emirati e-commerce startup is …

Bloomberg The Trump administration has thrown a lifeline to the last hope for a US nuclear power revival, offering $3.7 billion in additional loan guarantees for Southern Co.’s troubled reactor project in Georgia. The conditional guarantees announced by the Energy Department come at a critical time for Southern. Georgia regulators are weighing whether to allow the company and its partners …

Reuters Kuwait’s parliament is likely to approve a law to extend the country’s borrowing limits, enabling 30-year debt issues, a senior finance ministry official said. The law would allow Kuwait to increase its debt ceiling to 25 billion Kuwaiti dinar ($83 billion) from 10 billion currently. It would also allow the Gulf state to issue debt instruments with maturities of …