Bloomberg The Taliban has called on its supporters to block this month’s parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, describing the October 20 vote as a “malicious American conspiracy.” The militant group vowed to create “severe obstacles” to prevent the elections from going ahead, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said in an emailed statement. The poll was a conspiracy to deceive Afghans and achieve “the ...

Bloomberg Jair Bolsonaro, the divisive, far-right former Army captain, stormed to a huge lead in the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections as voters enraged by years of recession, corruption scandals and soaring crime rallied around his strongman message. The result puts the seven-time congressman on track for victory in the decisive, second-round vote on October 28, when he will ...

Bloomberg Nationalists prevailed in elections for Bosnia’s multi-ethnic, power-sharing institutions in victories that are sure to further fuel distrust and tension in a country that’s been divided since a devastating war in the 1990s. The Balkan nation of 3.5 million people has flirted with spiraling back into crisis since agreeing to a US-brokered peace pact in 1995 that left the ...

Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron is readying for Phase Two of his presidency. The 40-year-old French leader is preparing broad changes within his government to jump start his presidency and draw a line under months of scandals and political setbacks. He is readying for “an important rebound,” according to his office. The new cabinet is expected to be announced on Tuesday, Journal ...

President Donald Trump’s trade war is less bad than it was just a short time ago. After some tense negotiations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has been replaced with a new, very similar arrangement, meaning the disruption to trade — and to US relations with Canada and Mexico — will be contained. The agreement might even ease the ...

With Comcast Corp.’s 12-part, $27 billion jumbo bond offering to fund its acquisition of Sky Plc, the US cable giant is on the path to joining a select group of companies with more than $100 billion of debt. But what’s just as noteworthy is the club that Comcast chose to avoid. Comcast will likely keep its A- and A3 credit ...

Bashing European banks together in a game of spin-the-deal-wheel makes for great headlines — UniDeutsche? BarChart? — but it will do little to dent the record market share in investment banking their US rivals enjoy. Of the many diseases blighting Europe’s financial industry, the most relevant one for clients is the gaps in its global presence. As long as the ...

Since becoming France’s president last year, Emmanuel Macron has made bold moves. He has modernized the economy by relaxing labor rules, reducing taxes for entrepreneurs, and making the higher education system more meritocratic. His government’s new budget includes the biggest tax cuts introduced in France in more than a decade. Yet the public remains unimpressed. Macron’s approval rating has been ...

When one of India’s largest shadow bankers — an institution with 169 subsidiaries that calls itself Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) — admitted to a series of defaults last week, Indian markets came close to a crisis. Fearing that a prolonged investment slowdown would intensify, the government invoked a little-known clause in India’s Companies Act and appointed a new ...

Investors’ pens are hovering a bit longer before writing checks to fintech startups. Funding Circle Holdings Plc was once tipped to be valued at as much as 2 billion pounds ($2.6 billion) in its initial public offering (IPO). When it made its market debut last week, the online lending marketplace weighed in at a skinnier 1.5 billion pounds. That’s still ...