Bloomberg Bahrain’s foreign-currency reserves tumbled 11 percent in February, extending a decline that has fueled speculation that the island kingdom would either tap international bond markets soon or seek financial support from other Gulf Arab monarchies. Net foreign assets dropped to 645.2 million dinars, from 725.9 million dinars in January, according to central bank data released on Sunday. Overall, ...

  TOKYO / Reuters Japan’s trade ministry on Monday reported success in producing gas last week by extracting methane gas from methane hydrate deposits offshore Japan’s central coast. The tests being run at two different wells are the first since 2013, when Japan achieved the world’s first-ever extraction of gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate, a frozen gas known ...

  Bloomberg Iran’s gold jewellery demand climbed to a four-year high in the first quarter, as the rest of the Middle East was hurt by low oil prices. An improving economy helped Iran’s jewelry demand climb 27 percent from a year earlier to 12.9 metric tons in the first three months this year, the World Gold Council said in a ...

  Bloomberg President Barack Obama warned Donald Trump during the presidential transition against hiring Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, according to two former Obama administration officials. The revelation came hours before Trump’s former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, is to testify to a Senate panel about what the Trump White House was ...

  Bloomberg German Social Democrat Martin Schulz said he would join France’s Emmanuel Macron in leading an investment boom in Europe to buttress the region’s economy if he’s elected to replace Angela Merkel as chancellor in September. President-elect Macron, a “reform-minded and ambitious” candidate, requires a “similar energy” from Germany to spur much-needed growth in the European Union, Schulz told ...

  Bloomberg A former general in South Sudan’s army said he commands a new rebel movement of at least 30,000 fighters that will seek to overthrow President Salva Kiir, threatening to deepen the three-year civil war in Africa’s newest nation. Thomas Cirillo, a former lieutenant general, resigned as deputy chief for logistics in South Sudan’s army in February, accusing Kiir ...

  Having bestowed the presidency on a candidate who described their country as a “hellhole” besieged by multitudes trying to get into it, Americans need an antidote for social hypochondria. Fortunately, one has arrived from Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center and proprietor of the indispensable blog Cafe Hayek. He has good news: You are as ...

  The benefits of OPEC’s agreement to cut output have proved elusive. With less than three weeks to go before the group’s next meeting, something is very, very wrong as far as oil producers are concerned. And they have no easy solution to put it right. The oil price is not far off where it was in November, before OPEC ...

  Beji Sasaki, a maverick businessman who first challenged Tokyo’s status quo four decades ago, says his bidding war with the $13 billion computer giant Fujitsu Ltd. is just the start of his plan to use takeovers to change Japan Inc. Sasaki, a 61-year-old entrepreneur, fashion designer and supermarathon runner, says he’s setting up a fund backed by Taiwanese money ...

  Bloomberg China is considering plans to create three power giants through mergers of eight coal-fired and nuclear generators with combined assets of almost 5.9 trillion yuan ($855 billion), according to people with knowl-edge of the plan. The proposal, which is only one option being considered as the government of President Xi Jinping seeks to restructure the state-run power sector, ...