Bloomberg China’s home prices increased in fewer cities last month in the wake of cooling measures imposed by local authorities. New-home prices, excluding government-subsidized housing, gained from the previous month in 56 of 70 cities tracked by the government, compared with 58 in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Prices fell in nine cities and were unchanged ...

Bloomberg Brexit talks finally began on Monday, almost a year since Britons voted to leave the European Union and amid confusion over what exactly the UK government wants from the divorce. What UK Brexit Secretary David Davis describes as the “most complicated negotiation of all time” began at 11 a.m. in Brussels with Prime Minister Theresa May’s government already on ...

Bloomberg UK police are treating an incident in which a van plowed into a crowd outside a north London mosque as the third terrorist attack on the capital in as many months. One man died and 10 people were injured, all of them “from the Muslim community,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu told reporters in London on Monday. The attack ...

Bloomberg Special forces in Mali killed two assailants and freed all hostages after an attack in which at least another two people died at a resort that’s popular with foreigners on the outskirts of the capital, Bamako. The “terrorist attack” started a 4 p.m. at Le Campement Kangaba, near the suburb of Dougourakoro, the security ministry said in a statement ...

Bloomberg Iran said it fired missiles at IS targets in Syria in retaliation for the extremists’ deadly attacks in Tehran last week, a rare strike signaling Iran’s willingness to escalate its use of military power in the region’s conflicts. Six surface-to-surface missiles were launched on Sunday from western bases in Iran at command centers, logistic sites and suicide car bomb ...

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s grip on the ruling Liberal Democratic Party appeared to be slipping as concerns about cronyism and the rushed passage of an “anti-conspiracy” law triggered his biggest drop in support since taking office in 2012. After repeated denials, government documents emerged last week pointing to his office’s possible involvement in favors given to a close ...

Bloomberg In 16 years since leaving university, Olivia Gregoire advised the French and Peruvian governments on health care, created her own marketing firm, and got to know the inside of job centers and labor courts when the euro crisis left her unemployed. On Monday she starts a new career as a lawmaker representing a middle-class district of Paris for President ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank plans to use insolvency laws against more corporate defaulters to speed up resolution of the country’s bad loans that have swelled to $180 billion. “The clock’s already ticking — some cases are already before the National Company Law Tribune,” said Sanjeev Sanyal, principal economic adviser to the finance ministry. “More lists will be out in the ...

Bloomberg Italian finance officials and the European Commission are racing to find a solution for two troubled banks in the northern Veneto region that have weighed on the nation’s financial system. Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said the matter of Veneto Banca SpA and Banca Popolare di Vicenza is being worked on “actively,” without offering details. European Commission Vice President ...

Bloomberg Nordic banks, long considered among the safest in the world, are losing their appeal as an investment target as lenders further south start to look more attractive, according to PineBridge Investments, a multi-asset manager that oversees about $85 billion. Graeme Bencke, the portfolio manager who heads equity strategy at PineBridge in London, says the circumstances that made banks in ...