Bloomberg Czech workers are slowly winning the war on low wages. Faced with the European Union’s lowest unemployment rate, companies are tackling a dearth of able bodies in the country of 10.6 million with bonuses and higher salaries. According to Josef Stredula, the head of the nation’s umbrella union, that will continue for several more years as labor costs lie ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has dispatched one of his top aides to New York for talks ahead of his planned summit with Donald Trump next month, the president said on Twitter. “Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more,” Trump said in a Twitter posting that misspelled the envoy’s name. “Kim Young Chol, the Vice Chairman of ...

Bloomberg Libya’s competing powers reached a “consensus” on holding presidential and parliamentary elections in December, signalling a possible way out of the chaos that has gripped the nation for more than seven years. The leaders agreed to a statement that called for the “phasing out of parallel governments and institutions” and said that anyone who interferes in the election process ...

Bloomberg Italy’s Democratic Party signalled a return to campaign mode as it charged its rivals, the League and the Five Star Movement, with having prepared a plan to pull the country out of the euro if they had succeeded in forming a government together. The two parties gambled with the country’s well-being “with a project to take Italy out of ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump may have ordered the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, but one of Asia’s biggest oil importers — and a strategic partner of the US — plans on ignoring them. India, a long-time buyer of oil from both Iran and Venezuela, only complies with UN-mandated sanctions and not those imposed by one country on another, said foreign ...

Bloomberg The European Union must reconstruct itself to protect its economies from euro-area contagion and attract the UK back after Brexit, investor George Soros said. “The economic case for remaining a member of the EU is strong, but it will take time for it to sink in,” Soros said in a speech in Paris on Tuesday. “During that time the ...

White House officials, back in December, widely criticized the Joint Committee on Taxation’s estimate of the cost of the soon-to-be passed tax cut. But if the first three months are any guide, the tax cut will end up being considerably more generous, not less, to corporate America than the committee and others forecast. How much? At least $300 billion, and ...

Say “equities trading,” and HSBC Holdings Plc won’t be the first bank to come to mind. Or the second or third. It doesn’t even reach the top 10. Yet its recent efforts to bulk up in this area make a lot of sense. Never mind that investment banks globally are struggling in equities as automation and regulation eat into wafer-thin ...

An auction of two is one drop-out from being no auction at all. Just look at Sky Plc. The British satellite broadcaster has rival suitors in Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. and Comcast Corp., with a potential backup in the form of Walt Disney Co. But there’s still no guarantee that a bidding war will ensure Sky fetches a full price. ...

The European Union faces another existential crisis, and the European Central Bank (ECB) will need to do whatever it takes to staunch it again. So far, it’s showed little inclination. By letting the turmoil continue, it risks creating a full-blown conflagration. Investors are taking fright at the threat that Italy could leave the euro. Yields on the country’ two-year bonds ...