Bloomberg The U.K. economy may be heading for its first recession since 2009, with economists slashing their forecasts in the wake of the Brexit vote and now seeing two quarters of contraction this year. While the 0.1% decline in gross domestic product anticipated in each of the third and fourth quarters is modest, it will mark the end of …

  Bloomberg French executives brushed aside concerns about the U.K. vote to leave the European Union, reporting improving confidence in the first major survey of business sentiment since the British referendum. Business sentiment rose two points to 102 in July, while sentiment among manufacturing executives climbed one point to 103, national statistics office Insee said Thursday. The increase suggests that …

  Bloomberg Galenica AG, the owner of Switzerland’s biggest pharmacy network, agreed to buy Relypsa Inc. for about $1.53 billion to gain a new medicine and a commercial network in the U.S. The Swiss company will pay $32 per share in cash for Redwood City, California-based Relypsa, it said in a statement on Thursday. That’s 59 percent above yesterday’s closing …

  Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp. has a clear path to expanding its reach in Papua New Guinea after its rivals said they wouldn’t counter a $2.5 billion bid for gas explorer InterOil Corp. Oil Search Ltd. and Total SA had offered to buy InterOil in May in a deal that valued the company at $2.2 billion. Exxon topped it with …

  Ankara / AFP Turkish authorities on Thursday imposed a three-month state of emergency, strengthening powers to round up suspects accused of staging the failed military coup despite global alarm over a widening purge. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the state of emergency, Turkey’s first in 14 years, shortly before midnight after a marathon meeting of his national security council, …

  Beijing/ AFP Torrential rain lashing northern China in recent days has left nearly 100 people dead or missing, official figures showed. At least 24 people in the provinces of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing, Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi have been confirmed dead in a rainstorm that has been pounding the region since Monday, according to figures from the civil affairs …

  Gyeonggi / Emirates Business Man Hee Lee, Chairman of Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) was bestowed with the “Mahatma Gandhi Prize for Non-Violent Peace” at the Peace Palace in Gyeonggi, South Korea on July 19. Mahatma Gandhi Prize for Nonviolent Peace, is an international award boasting of renowned past winners, including Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Margaret …

  Dublin / AFP French President Francois Hollande on Thursday urged Britain to begin talks to leave the EU “as soon as possible” and ruled out granting access to the EU’s single market without access by EU workers to Britain. “The sooner these negotiations begin the better, and the shorter they are the better,” Hollande said after meeting Irish PM …

  Bloomberg In his strongest remarks to date on the future of the western military alliance, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the U.S. would only defend NATO members attacked by Russia after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us.” In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, the billionaire cast doubt on whether he …

  WASHINGTON In the uproar following the attempted military coup in Turkey, relations between Washington and Ankara, already badly strained, appear to be headed for new difficulty. The immediate test will be Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s demand that the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, an exiled Turkish Muslim leader blamed by Erdogan for the coup attempt. Obama administration officials …