August, 2018

• 1 August

  Xi orders army to get out of kindergarten business

  Bloomberg China’s military has been ordered by President Xi Jinping to stop running kindergartens and other businesses and focus on fighting, as he attempts to overhaul the world’s largest army. Xi said during a meeting of the Communist Party’s 25-member Politburo that the armed forces should cease commercial activities by the end of the year, the official Xinhua News Agency ...

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• 1 August

  Zimbabwe ruling party wins parliament

  

  Bloomberg Zimbabwe’s ruling party won a majority of parliamentary seats in the first election of the post- Robert Mugabe era as the opposition and advocacy groups questioned the credibility of the process. With almost three-quarters of results from the legislative vote tallied, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front had won 110 of the 210 directly elected seats in ...

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• 1 August

  Senate chief exits Buhari’s APC as opposition swells

  Bloomberg Nigeria’s leader Muhammadu Buhari suffered yet another blow as the Senate president walked out of the ruling party less than a week after about 50 lawmakers joined the ranks of a swelling opposition movement ahead of elections in February. “It is a decision that has been inescapably imposed on me by certain elements and forces within the All Progressives ...

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• 1 August

  Assange may be ready to take first steps into a different world

  

  Bloomberg Julian Assange soon will leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London—his refuge from criminal charges for the last six years—and enter a changed world. The Australian walked into the building in the capital’s Knightsbridge neighbourhood just before the 2012 Olympics, with Barack Obama in his first term and elections untainted by alleged interference by Russian agents. When he walks out, ...

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• 1 August

  China’s central bank steps up effort to boost lending

  

  Bloomberg China’s central bank has started actively encouraging banks to extend more credit by taking a softer stance on loan quotas, people familiar with the matter said, as authorities ratchet up efforts to bolster a cooling economy. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has delivered the message via so-called window guidance, said the people, who asked not to be named ...

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• 1 August

  RBI raises interest rate to fight inflation

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in two years as it stepped up efforts to curb inflation and stem capital outflows. Five of the six members of the monetary policy committee voted to raise the repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 percent, with Ravindra Dholakia the only one opposing it, the Reserve ...

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• 1 August

  UBS wins in fight over French bid for client data

  

  Bloomberg UBS Group AG doesn’t have to hand over client details to French tax authorities after a Swiss court handed the country’s largest bank a clear victory in a long-running saga over banking secrecy. The Swiss Federal Administrative Court said that French officials didn’t provide evidence that “the taxpayers involved have failed to comply with their tax obligations.” “Simply having ...

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• 1 August

  BNP equities trading resilient as its fixed income trails rivals

  

  Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA’s resilience in equities helped offset declines at a key debt-trading business that under-performed Wall Street rivals. The Paris-based bank benefited from “good volumes” in derivatives and providing brokerage services to hedge funds, driving equities revenue to a three-year high. That contrasted with the FICC unit buying and selling bonds, currencies and commodities — its biggest trading ...

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• 1 August

  Russia debt sanctions could send the ruble plunging 15%

  Bloomberg The ruble could plunge by as much as 15 percent and borrowing costs would spike to a three-year high if the US goes ahead with proposals to impose sanctions on Russian government bonds, according to a new model developed by Citigroup Inc. Moscow-based analysts at the bank said that such extreme moves would come from a “worst-case scenario” of ...

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• 1 August

  Lloyds profit jumps while missold insurance costs linger

  

  Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc is quickly gaining earnings momentum, but is still looking over its shoulder to clean up its troubled past. Britain’s largest mortgage lender posted a 23 percent jump in pretax profit for the second quarter, beating analyst estimates, and also upgraded its financial guidance for the full year. It’s also taking a 460 million-pound charge ($602 ...

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