October, 2019

• 6 October

  North Korea says nuclear talks broke down, but US disagrees

  

  Bloomberg North Korea said it’s not keen to hold more talks with the US until measures are taken to withdraw Washington’s “hostile policy” towards Pyongyang, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported. The US was using the latest talks in Stockholm for the benefit of its domestic politics, the Yonhap report said, citing a statement from the North Korean foreign ministry. ...

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• 6 October

  Australia rejects US plea for Iranian student extradition

  

  Bloomberg Australia has rejected a US extradition request for an Iranian student who had been accused of conspiring to smuggle electronic military devices to his homeland. “I considered that, in all the circumstances of this particular case, Mr Dehbashi Kivi should not ultimately be extradited to the United States,” Attorney-General Christian Porter said in a statement, the same day Iran ...

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• 6 October

  Tunisia’s parties seek rebound in parliamentary vote

  

  Bloomberg Tunisians went to the polls on Sunday with the major political parties looking to rebound from their defeat by outsiders in last month’s presidential vote by securing a strong position in the powerful parliament. Choosing the 217-member assembly has traditionally been the principal election in the North African country since its 2011 uprising ushered in democracy. But the shock ...

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• 6 October

  Trump impeachment fight lurks

  

  Bloomberg Even before the prospect of impeaching Donald Trump arose, the US Supreme Court term that opens on Monday was going to thrust the justices into the nation’s political wars in the run-up to next year’s election. In its first full term with two Trump appointees, the court is planning to hear fights over deportation protections and gun regulations. The ...

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• 6 October

  France to step up intel screening after attack

  

  Bloomberg France will take steps to improve screening after a suspected terrorist attack in Paris in which a police employee knifed four colleagues to death and hurt two more, raising questions about national security. The government will set up two task forces to make proposals by the end of the year to improve screening at the Paris police department intelligence ...

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• 6 October

  IndusInd, hit by India’s shadow bank stress, says worst is over

  

  Bloomberg IndusInd Bank, which saw a fifth of its market value wiped out over the past week on concern about its creditors, says the crisis of confidence engulfing India’s financial system is fading away. Outstanding loans to overstretched borrowers dipped at the Mumbai-based bank last quarter, lenders including IndusInd are working to resolve defaults at Dewan Housing Finance Ltd, and ...

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• 6 October

  RBA tells banks not to be strict after rates cut

  

  Bloomberg Australia’s central bank joined the government in warning lenders not to be too strict when assessing borrowers, fearing such caution could dent an already slowing economy. “It is important that banks are not overly cautious in the implementation of current lending policies,” the Reserve Bank of Australia said in its Financial Stability Review. “Lending always entails a degree of ...

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• 6 October

  Danske non-resident unit ‘banker’ speaks out

  

  Bloomberg Between 2009 and 2015, Mihhail Murnikov spent his days handling as many transactions as he could at the non-resident unit of Danske Bank in Estonia. Roughly a year after Danske admitted that those transactions were part of a $220 billion money laundering scandal, prosecutors from Tallinn to Washington are still trying to get to the bottom of what really ...

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• 6 October

  Former Credit Suisse CEO calls negative rates ‘crazy’

  

  Bloomberg Oswald Gruebel, who led both of Switzerland’s two biggest banks during his career, criticised negative interest rates and argued they’d lead to a further decline of the country’s financial sector. “Negative interest rates are crazy. That means money is not worth anything anymore,” Gruebel said in an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag. “As long as we have ...

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• 6 October

  $63b of zombie buildings sound alarm for Indian banks

  

  Bloomberg Ashish Shah is caught in the middle of India’s latest financial crisis. As chief operating officer of Radius Developers, he’s struggling to fund construction of apartment complexes because of a liquidity crunch in the nation’s bloated shadow-banking sector. “Real estate is a sitting duck,” said Shah. “The timing is very crucial as the slowdown has hit the real estate ...

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