April, 2019

• 14 April

  Kim Jong-un appoints more generals in latest North Korea shakeup

  

  Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un elevated the ranks of dozens of military officers in the latest display of his grip on power amid a stalemate in nuclear talks with the US. Kim ordered three people to be promoted to full general and 33 others to major general on Sunday to mark the upcoming birthday of his grandfather and North ...

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• 14 April

  Buhari says election rival not a Nigerian citizen

  Bloomberg Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari told an election tribunal the candidate he beat in a February vote was not a citizen of Nigeria by birth and ought not to have even been allowed to run for the office, deepening the rift between the political leaders in the oil-rich west African nation. The allegation against Atiku Abubakar, the opposition candidate of ...

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• 14 April

  Abbas swears in new PA government without Hamas

  

  Bloomberg Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a new government that excludes his rival Hamas and puts his long-time ally Mohammad Shtayyeh in the role of prime minister at a moment of intensifying pressure on the Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu now looks likely to serve a fifth term as Israeli prime minister. Just before Israelis went to the polls, Netanyahu ...

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• 14 April

  Yellow Vest protests continue in France

  

  Bloomberg France’s Yellow Vest protesters took to the streets for a 22nd weekend, leading to clashes with police in the southwestern city of Toulouse, while the capital remained calm. Police used tear gas and water cannon in Toulouse to keep demonstrators out of the centre of the city, France.tv showed. Parts of Paris and some regional cities were declared off limits ...

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• 14 April

  Roger Stone attacks Mueller indictment

  Bloomberg Roger Stone, a sometime adviser and confidant of President Donald Trump, launched a blunderbuss attack on his indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, filing a flurry of papers claiming he was singled out for prosecution and demanding that his lawyers be allowed to see the special counsel’s final report. A longtime Republican political operative and dirty trickster, Stone was ...

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• 14 April

  Trump’s sanctions on Iran could backfire

  

  The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran assumes that economic sanctions are weakening the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — and that more sanctions will make the IRGC weaker still. The problem is that US and European intelligence analysts don’t think this forecast is accurate. “Re-imposition of sanctions in 2018 has played into the hands of the IRGC,” warns ...

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• 14 April

  JPMorgan is bullish on the consumer

  

  The health of the US economy largely comes down to consumers’ attitude and spending. That’s why some investors were anxious about the contentious government shutdown that lasted into early 2019; any lingering concerns could dampen the outlook for future growth. Judging by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s first-quarter earnings, that saga has barely been a blip. And that might just mean ...

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• 14 April

  China’s data boomlet can’t hide a longer slowdown

  China’s economy has come up for air, just a little. A bit of pep in recent Chinese numbers is encouraging. At least as important as the short-term bounce, though, is the long-term trajectory. The Middle Kingdom may lose its exceptionalism and start looking more like the US and Europe in ways that seemed barely conceivable during the 1990s and the ...

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• 14 April

  Derivatives still present threat to financial system

  Financial regulators have done a lot to reform the derivatives markets that helped turn the financial crisis of 2008 into a global disaster. But their work is unfinished — and there’s even a danger that, in one way, they might have made things worse. Derivatives are bets on the performance of something else, such as stocks, interest rates or creditworthiness. ...

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• 14 April

  India can’t replicate China’s path to power just by magic

  

  There’s one clear favourite in the world’s biggest election, which runs for six weeks: incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Buoyed by his personal popularity, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party isn’t even pretending to offer dramatic new programs if it returns to power. Its election manifesto, released earlier this week, was a relatively uninspiring document — a few populist promises to ...

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