March, 2016

• 21 March

  5 Countries seen breaching EU deficit rule this year

  Bloomberg When it comes to fiscal discipline in the European Union, three is the magic number. That’s a deficit limit of 3 percent of GDP, and five EU states will make the budgetary bad books this year by breaching that level. These five — the U.K., France, Spain, Greece, and Croatia — include three of Europe’s five largest economies. Three ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Investing in USA attractive as yield premium climbs: Fidelity

  

  Bloomberg Fidelity Capital Markets said the difference between yields on Treasuries and other bonds makes investing in the U.S. attractive, as America’s premium approached the most in a decade. Treasuries due in 10 years or longer yielded more than 1.5 percentage points more than their counterparts around the world, based on Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. The premium was ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Brazil economists forecast weaker growth amid crisis

  

  Bloomberg Brazil analysts reduced their 2016 economic growth forecast for the ninth straight week as a political crisis grips the nation and further dims the outlook for turnaround. Economists lowered their 2016 economic forecast to a contraction of 3.6 percent, and reduced their 2017 outlook for the first time in more than a month to 0.44 percent growth, according to ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Canadian agency extends application for Petronas LNG project by 3 months

  

  Bloomberg Canadian regulators extended by three months Petroliam Nasional Bhd.’s application to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the nation’s Pacific coast so the Malaysian company can provide more information about the project’s environmental impacts. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced the extension in a filing after Pacific NorthWest LNG, as the project is known, detailed changes to its ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Chile’s economy expands at 2nd-slowest pace in 6 years

  

  Bloomberg Chile’s economy grew less that expected in the fourth quarter, expanding at the second-slowest pace in six years, as two years of weak growth was exacerbated by a renewed decline in manufacturing. Gross domestic product grew 1.3 percent from a year earlier, the central bank said on its website. From the previous quarter, GDP expanded 0.1 percent. Increased fiscal ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Unstable Argentine peso is just what the central bank ordered

  

  Bloomberg Argentina’s peso is the world’s most volatile currency, and that’s fine with the central bank. Big swings are usually not something policy makers want. Officials around the world have procedures in place to ward off the rapid ups and downs that make it difficult for businesses to plan and leave savers nervous about staying in the national currency. But ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Iraqi government, army wary of Iran-backed militias’ power

  

  BAGHDAD / AP It was a tense confrontation between two forces supposed to be on the same side in Iraq. First, heavily armed police, led by the interior minister, waded into a Shiite militia base south of Baghdad and arrested its deputy commander, accused of organizing attacks on Sunni mosques. They loaded the man, Ali Reda, into an armored SUV. ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Arab League rejects Kurd-led moves for federal Syria

  Cairo / AFP The Arab League on Monday rejected Kurdish-led moves for a federal system of government in Syria, charging that they would lead to the break-up of the war-torn country. League deputy secretary general Ahmed Ben Helli said the pan-Arab bloc would not recognise last week’s unilateral proclamation by the Kurds and their Arab and Assyrian Christian allies. “The ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  Turkish monitors on Greek islands for migrant deal

  ATHENS / AP Monitors from Turkey have arrived on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios to help supervise an agreement aimed limiting the number of refugees flowing into the European Union via smugglers’ boats. The officers arrived on Monday and were to stay for at least one week, as Greek authorities scrambled to implement the landmark deal reached last ...

  Read More »
• 21 March

  1,600 more migrants land in Greece

  Athens / WAM A total of 1,662 migrants have landed on Greek islands near Turkey since a landmark EU-Turkish deal on curbing the influx took effect on Sunday, a Greek coordination panel said Monday. Half of the migrants—830—arrived on Chios and 698 others on Lesbos, two islands in the northeast Aegean which lie close to Turkey, according to the SOMP ...

  Read More »