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Tory’s Brexit rifts threaten Cameron

Bloomberg Splits in the UK Conservative Party pose a growing threat to David Cameron’s chances of remaining prime minister after the Brexit referendum as “blue-on-blue” attacks become increasingly acrimonious. Bookmakers cut the odds on Cameron’s ouster this year as former London Mayor Boris Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove, prominent Conservative campaigners to leave the European Union, said the premier’s ...

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NATO urged to show stronger resolve on Russia, boost defense

  TIRANA / AP NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly urged alliance members on Monday to stand up to Russia’s military assertiveness and to do a better job sharing the burden of collective defense. A unanimously approved declaration called on alliance members “to provide reassurance to those allies who feel their security is under threat, focusing on the eastern and southern flanks of ...

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Beijing angry after Indonesia detains Chinese fishing boat

  Jakarta / AFP Beijing insisted on Monday a Chinese boat detained close to Indonesian islands had been fishing legally, in a fresh flare-up of tensions between the countries in the South China Sea. The Indonesian navy seized the Chinese boat in waters near the Natuna Islands on Friday for allegedly fishing illegally, the military said. The boat was towed ...

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Duterte snubs his proclamation as next Philippine president

  Manila /AFP Rodrigo Duterte snubbed his proclamation as the next Philippine president on Monday, reinforcing his image as a maverick outsider intent on challenging the nation’s political establishment. A joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate in Manila endorsed the official count of this month’s election, which saw the trash-talking politician who revels in threats to ...

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Good news for the middle class!

WASHINGTON Maybe the middle class isn’t quite so stressed any more. We in the media are rightly criticized for a pessimistic bias. We cover the unfortunate, the grim and the tragic. News is what people don’t know and, as often as not, is sad or shocking. Our prism on the world distorts reality, because reality is often predictable and reassuring ...

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ECB won’t vow much at Vienna meeting

  Rising oil prices may give the European Central Bank (ECB) a rare opportunity to revise upwards its price growth forecasts when it meets on Thursday. Brent and WTI crude oil topped $50 per barrel on Thursday and remained above $49 on Friday. However, overall inflation remains very low and the euro area slipped back into deflation in April, with ...

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European money doesn’t want to go to Greece

  Mark Whitehouse Greece and its creditors may have averted a crisis by agreeing on the release of another dose of bailout money, but the deal does little to address a deeper problem: Europeans still don’t want to put their money there. The flow of capital between the rest of the euro area and Greece offers a useful indicator of ...

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Central Banks can’t go it alone anymore

  Whether through signals from the Group of Seven meeting this week or in the outcome of the latest round of European negotiations on Greece, officials of advanced countries increasingly are acknowledging that the problems facing their economies require a new response to take over from the overlong use of narrow short-term tools. This recognition has been too long in ...

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The potential pitfalls of US-Vietnam rapprochement

In formally lifting Washington’s embargo on the sale of weapons to Vietnam, U.S. President Barack Obama has affirmed that this action should not be seen as being aimed at any other state. Yet the subtext of Obama’s visit is clear: it is an implicit signaling of U.S. willingness to form a regional balance of power against the People’s Republic of ...

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