May, 2018

• 21 May

  Maduro wins Venezuelan election, risks oil sanctions

  

  Bloomberg President Nicolas Maduro won another six-year term as millions of Venezuelans boycotted the widely derided election, a victory that hands him sole ownership of the nation’s crushing economic crisis. Ignoring calls from the US and regional leaders to suspend the elections, the socialist regime proceeded with the presidential contest despite the threat of further isolation and sanctions on the ...

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• 21 May

  Trump ‘inquiry’ ups stakes in Russia probe

  

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s formal demand that the Justice Department investigate possible surveillance of his campaign marks a turning point: It’s the first time he’s using the authority of his office to counter the Russia probe since he fired FBI Director James Comey last year. “I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look ...

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• 21 May

  Abramovich faces delay in getting UK visa renewal

  

  Bloomberg Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns London’s Chelsea Football Club, is unable to travel to the UK at the moment because of delays renewing his visa, according to people familiar with the situation. Abramovich, who didn’t watch his team win the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium, hasn’t been denied a visa, but renewal is taking longer than usual, ...

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• 21 May

  No experience is no drawback for Italy PM candidate

  

  Bloomberg Giuseppe Conte, a 53-year old law professor with no political experience, has emerged as the leading candidate for prime minister in an Italian coalition government. All of Italy’s main newspapers reported on Monday that Conte, who teaches law at Florence University, is the frontrunner. Conte himself posted a picture of John F. Kennedy on his WhatsApp profile over the ...

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• 21 May

  Pompeo sets out demands on Iran after Trump kills N-deal

  Bloomberg Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran halt all uranium enrichment, stop its ballistic-missile programme and give nuclear inspectors access to the entire country, in a speech detailing the US approach now that President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 nuclear deal. The demands were among 12 “basic requirements” that the US will seek if Iran wants relief ...

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• 21 May

  Storage of solar power will be energy’s next big thing

  

  Think the plummeting costs of solar and wind are transforming the energy landscape? Then you should be betting on ways to warehouse that power. To understand why, consider: Unlike almost all their rivals in the energy-generation space, solar panels and wind turbines are mass-produced goods. That means they’re subject to the rules of continual improvement and falling costs that we ...

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• 21 May

  Something is rotten at the heart of euro

  

  It’s Groundhog Day again for the euro. It doesn’t really matter whether talks in Italy between the Five Star Movement and the League still include plans to seek a write-off of 250 billion euros ($295 billion) of the nation’s debts and secure an exit mechanism from the euro, as the Huffington Post reported. The fact that these ideas were even ...

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• 21 May

  Indonesia is stuck in the fragile five for good reason

  Call it full circle. Five years after the 2013 taper tantrum, Indonesia is looking fragile again. This year, foreigners have been selling anything to do with the Southeast Asian nation. The Jakarta Composite Index is down 7.4 percent, making Indonesia, along with the Philippines, one of the worst-performing emerging markets in the region. The rupiah has tumbled 3.6 against the ...

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• 21 May

  Blockchain may not be as cool as it thinks it is

  Pop quiz: Which of Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Netflix Inc. has shouted most to investors about Bitcoin or blockchain? The answer is… none of the above. Bloomberg’s database of regulatory filings shows no mention of either blockchain or Bitcoin in these companies’ disclosures since 2008. The closest was Netflix CFO David Wells, who said on ...

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• 21 May

  Wells Fargo has shown us its contemptible values

  

  My favourite bit in the Wall Street Journal story about Wells Fargo & Co.’s latest regulatory screw-up was this statement from the bank’s public relations department: Over the past several months we’ve built more robust internal processes that reinforce our values, and if we find any situations where behavior violates those values, we take swift action to correct. To which ...

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