Bloomberg Mergers and acquisitions in Canada are set for the strongest start in a decade as foreigners sell their oil sands investments. There have been about $132 billion of transactions recorded this year, the highest since $156.5 billion in the first half of 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Local companies snapped up these energy assets, boosting domestic M&A …

Bloomberg The US will impose further punitive tariffs on imports of softwood lumber from Canada, escalating a longstanding trade dispute that’s already led to higher timber prices. Preliminary anti-dumping duties of as much as 7.7 percent will be levied on Canadian producers, the US Department of Commerce said in a statement. The move follows the government’s decision in April to …

Bloomberg Qatar will remain cut off from its neighbours unless its leaders meet the full demands of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, a senior Saudi official said, even as the top US diplomat continued efforts towards a negotiated settlement. “We made our point, we took our steps and it’s up to the Qataris to amend their behaviour,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel …

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May will face the first key test of her new minority government’s power as opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn challenges Tory lawmakers over austerity. In the wake of the inferno at a London high-rise apartment building this month that’s believed to have killed 79 people and a wave of terrorist attacks in Britain, Corbyn …

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to focus attention on his plans to boost the economy, after conservative firebrand lawmaker Tony Abbott criticized the nation’s direction under Turnbull’s leadership. “Australians are bored, fed up with journalists and politicians talking among themselves,” Turnbull, who led the Liberal-National coalition to a razor-thin one-seat election victory a year ago, told reporters on …

Bloomberg Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed a former ally for orchestrating an incident in Caracas on Tuesday evening that involved a police helicopter flying over government institutions and allegedly firing shots and dropping grenades from the air. Maduro, speaking on state television, said he activated an air defense plan and deployed all military special forces to capture the helicopter crew …

Bloomberg Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and started renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The challenge for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who heads to Washington this week, is to keep Trump away from another deal the billionaire dislikes: their 2012 free-trade pact. The summit between …

Do we have a worker shortage? Maybe. For months, I’ve planned to write a column on the future of the US labour market. Stacked on my desk are reports on “the gig economy,” “independent workers,” “contingent workers,” “freelancers” and the like. All signify a new, less secure labor market. Workers won’t have long-lasting career jobs, as the old post-World War …

Executives of risky U.S. oil companies should feel proud. They sold billions of dollars of junk-rated debt earlier this year, locking in historically low borrowing costs and pushing out their maturities. And they did so at the expense of debt investors, who now find themselves getting burned yet again, less than two years after one of the biggest selloffs ever …

It’s easier for American tourists to travel to North Korea than to Cuba. It’s also more dangerous, as the death this week of college student Otto Warmbier after 17 months of North Korean captivity shows. But never mind the absurdity of President Donald Trump’s reimposition of travel restrictions to a relatively open and safe island 90 miles off the American …