June, 2018

• 18 June

  Colombia elects Ivan Duque as president

  

  Bloomberg Ivan Duque, a 41-year-old lawyer and former senator who wants to modify parts of a peace process and cut corporate taxes, will be Colombia’s next president following a decisive election victory on June 17. Duque, who spent half his adult life in Washington, is the protege of former President Alvaro Uribe, a polarising security hard-liner. Whether he’ll be able ...

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• 18 June

  Italy’s populists show how to lose friends

  

  Bloomberg In their first two weeks in power, Italy’s populist leaders sparked a dispute with France over immigration and threatened to scupper a landmark EU trade pact with Canada. It’s hardly the way to make friends with European partners in key deciding positions when Italy seeks approval for the big-spending budget plan it will submit to Brussels in four months. ...

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• 18 June

  Merkel accepts deadline to win EU migration deal

  

  Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel accepted a two-week deadline to win agreement on tougher migration policy, a concession to her Bavarian coalition partner that eases an immediate standoff without removing the threat of further government tension down the road. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who heads Bavaria’s Christian Social Union party, insists the chancellor reach a deal by the end of June ...

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• 18 June

  Brexit foes corner May as crunch vote looms

  

  Bloomberg Theresa May is surrounded. On one side, the UK prime minister has the European Union, sharpening its knives to defend the club of 27 remaining members against British “cherry picking” during Brexit talks. On the other side is her own Conservative party, split into two feuding tribes, either one of which could topple her from power. It’s the domestic ...

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• 18 June

  Congo opposition leader says state cancelled his passport

  Bloomberg Democratic Republic of Congo opposition leader Moise Katumbi said the authorities revoked his passport and won’t allow him to replace it. Katumbi was advised by Belgian airport services, after returning from a trip to Israel, that his semi-biometric passport had been withdrawn from the system. A request to the Congolese Embassy in Belgium for a full biometric passport was ...

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• 18 June

  In a world of uncertainty, yield curves are certain

  

  This week was billed as the most important of the year in terms of the global economy, with the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Japan (BoJ) all meeting to set monetary policy, high level economic data out of the US ranging from inflation to retail sales, the fallout from the disastrous Group of Seven (G-7) meeting, ...

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• 18 June

  China’s banks are still in trouble

  

  You wouldn’t know it from the government’s optimistic pronouncements, but China’s banks are still under significant stress. Although the latest plan to help them out won’t solve any fundamental problems, it will buy time — maybe enough to come up with better ideas. By several measures, Chinese banks are strained. Their official loan–to-deposit ratio increased from 65.8 percent in June ...

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• 18 June

  Draghi’s masterclass in something for everyone

  

  The European Central Bank’s (ECB) policy meeting was a masterclass from President Mario Draghi in how to ride two horses at once: calling time on quantitative easing while keeping a dovish tone. The bond-buying program will end this year — but the governing council paired this with a clear message that interest rates won’t rise before the end of summer ...

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• 18 June

  Coal isn’t safe even in its Asian fortresses

  The latest review of BP – one of world’s leading integrated oil and gas companies – of the world’s appetite for energy, contained a startling chart indicating that coal’s grip on electricity generation has not changed in 20 years. There were clear signs of a shift occurring at the margin when you looked at growth in different types of power ...

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• 18 June

  Argentina’s IMF package could trigger ugly blowback

  

  Markets welcomed the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) $50 billion rescue stabilization package last week, which seems to be stabilizing the peso. But the financial umbrella will be costly. Rightly or wrongly, Argentines blame the IMF for precipitating their country’s worst economic crisis. In the eyes of many voters, the mere association will damage President Mauricio Macri’s standing. As detrimental, the ...

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