May, 2018

• 26 May

  Rajoy refuses to be written off as rivals seek ouster

  

  Bloomberg Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy is fighting to save his government from collapse after a slew of harsh jail sentences handed down by judges in Madrid exposed his party’s Achilles heel on corruption. The Socialists, the biggest opposition group, filed a no-confidence motion against him and Ciudadanos, another party, threatened to do the same unless he calls early elections. The ...

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• 26 May

  Brexit rebels in Scotland bid for ‘independence’

  

  Bloomberg After championing the cause for staying in the European Union, Scotland’s nationalists are reigniting their effort to leave the UK with plans for a new currency, economic regime and an open door for immigrants. A report by a Scottish National Party commission made the case that Scotland should look to emulate small, better-performing economies such as Denmark and New ...

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• 26 May

  Madagascar top court orders to form new govt

  Bloomberg Madagascar’s Constitutional Court has instructed President Hery Rajaonarimampianina to appoint a new prime minister within seven days and ruled that he can remain leader of the Indian Ocean island nation until 60 days before the next election. The new PM will oversee the government until the inauguration of a new president. The country is scheduled to hold presidential and ...

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• 26 May

  Trump’s trade wars would avenge mythical casualties

  

  America’s government declares ‘war’ promiscuously — on poverty, on drugs, on cancer, etc. — except when actually going to war, which the nation has done often since it last declared war (on June 5, 1942, on Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary). But the incipient war du jour is being postponed. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the Trump administration is ‘putting the ...

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• 26 May

  Target should block out Wall Street’s noise

  

  The reaction to Target Corp.’s first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday is a near-perfect illustration of the enormous challenge many traditional retailers are up against in trying to satisfy Wall Street right now. By many measures, Target had a quite good quarter. Its comparable sales rose 3 percent over the same period last year, beating analysts’ expectations. That lift was powered ...

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• 26 May

  Tax sugar-sweetened drinks to help fight obesity problems

  

  Eating too much added sugar has become one of the riskiest health behaviours in the modern world. None too soon, governments are waking up to the fact. Staggering under the burden of increasingly overweight populations, more than 30 countries have put new taxes on sugary beverages, most in just the past four years. This is good policy, and it needs ...

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• 26 May

  Zuckerberg needs a wizard to clean up Facebook’s mess

  Is Mark Zuckerberg “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”? The comparison with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1797 lyrical ballad was invoked in the middle of a hearing in Brussels on Tuesday, where he faced questions from a handful of European lawmakers. In the poem, a wizard’s young apprentice is left alone by his master and enchants a broomstick. Before too long, he finds ...

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• 26 May

  Now, China is proving to be expensive date for Pakistan

  

  We’re about two months away from elections in Pakistan — elections that are almost certain to be shrouded in controversy, one way or another. And, worryingly for Pakistan, it appears that the economy is weakening, just in time for the instability that might follow from the country’s turbulent politics. Under the outgoing government — led till last April by Nawaz ...

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• 26 May

  Wells Fargo hasn’t gotten ahead of its problems

  

  Wells Fargo & Co. has launched a series of advertisements meant to rebuild trust with customers. But the ads, to pull an image from Wells Fargo’s long-ago campaigns, are putting the wagon before the horse. Evidence of that is piling up. The Wall Street Journal reported that Wells Fargo recently discovered that employees were improperly altering the documents of business ...

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• 26 May

  Barclays, join the list of jilted Standard Chartered suitors

  

  The long-awaited marriage of Standard Chartered Plc is a story of three decades of yearning that’s never found consummation. The latest potential suitor is Barclays Plc, which is reported by the Financial Times to be exploring a merger of StanChart. London-listed Barclays isn’t considering a possible deal, Reuters reported, citing two people close to the lender. In the event of ...

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