May, 2019

• 7 May

  Pompeo cancels Berlin visit, cites ‘pressing issues’

  

  Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo cancelled a visit to Berlin on Tuesday at short notice, citing “pressing issues” that forced him to pull out of talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “We look forward to rescheduling this important set of meetings,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said, without elaborating on the nature of the ...

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• 7 May

  Maduro must be at negotiating table to fix Venezuela: Cuba

  

  Bloomberg Cuba is willing to help negotiate a peaceful end to Venezuela’s political crisis if President Nicolas Maduro requests it, one of Havana’s top diplomats said. The so-called Lima Group of nations sought to enlist the communist-run Caribbean island in brokering a solution to the standoff last week after opposition leader Juan Guaido’s attempt to overthrow the embattled president failed. ...

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• 7 May

  Merkel’s protege fails to garner support

  

  Bloomberg Five months after Angela Merkel handed over the reins as her party’s leader, the transition to her chosen successor as German chancellor is shrouded in uncertainty, and with it the direction of Europe’s largest economy. As Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc languishes at or under 30 percent ahead of the May 26 European election, her protege Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer — known ...

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• 7 May

  Greek PM prepares for confidence vote

  

  Bloomberg Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is set to survive yet another challenge in the country’s parliament, where lawmakers will cast ballots this week in the fifth confidence vote since he came to power in 2015. Opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis of the New Democracy party requested a censure motion against Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis, after he launched an attack on ...

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• 7 May

  Trump’s trade threats hurt US more than China

  

  Trade wars are good, and easy to win. So President Donald Trump said last year as he embarked on his first round of tariffs on foreign imports. It seems that things have proven so good and easy that he’s readying for another bout. Trump is prepared to increase a 10 percent levy on $200 billion of imports from China to ...

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• 7 May

  HSBC, sink your jaws into the flab

  

  Too big, too bloated, and too unwieldy. HSBC Holdings Plc’s achievement in bringing costs under control in the first quarter shouldn’t be an excuse to stand still. The bank posted a higher-than-estimated pretax profit of $6.35 billion last week as revenue growth outpaced the increase in expenses, a phenomenon known in industry jargon as “positive jaws.” Revenue climbed 9 percent ...

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• 7 May

  Bankers are getting big raises under Trump

  Bankers appear to be doing very well under President Donald Trump. Judging from government data, they’re reaping some of the biggest wage gains they’ve had in a long time. The Labor Department’s jobs report for April offered further confirmation that demand for workers is translating into better pay overall. The average hourly wage was up 3.2 percent from a year ...

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• 7 May

  Power thieves draining India’s electric-car hopes

  Dirty air has finally become an issue in Indian election manifestos, along with perennial subjects such as temple-building and farmers’ incomes. That shouldn’t be a surprise: Even politicians can’t escape air pollution, which has reduced life expectancy in areas near the capital New Delhi by more than 12 years. To address the issue, the government earlier this year laid out ...

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• 7 May

  Big agriculture breeds a worldwide health crisis

  

  On the surface, our modern system of food production looks efficient: It produces plenty of food and seems highly innovative. But it also encourages people to eat unhealthy sugars and fats, while fully one-third of all food produced is lost or goes to waste. Industrial agriculture is defiling lakes and rivers with chemical runoff and depleting irreplaceable fertile topsoils. The ...

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• 7 May

  Uber’s UK taxi rival costs you peanuts

  

  Uber Technologies Inc.’s initial public offering will be a bittersweet moment for private equity giant Carlyle Group and its London minicab firm Addison Lee Holdings Ltd. Uber will almost certainly join its fellow ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. in securing a nosebleed market value, despite making heavy losses. The investor buzz could benefit Carlyle as it looks to exit from its ...

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