July, 2017

• 17 July

  Russia raises heat on Trump over seized property ahead of talks

  Bloomberg Russia stepped up pressure on the US to return seized diplomatic compounds in one of the first tests of whether Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin can convert the personal rapport of their initial meeting into improved relations. The country houses outside New York and Washington must be returned unconditionally after they were taken over by the US “absolutely in ...

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• 17 July

  UK’s Davis resumes Brexit talks as cabinet rows turn ugly

  

  Bloomberg UK Brexit Secretary David Davis returned to Brussels on Monday to resume Brexit talks with the European Union, as infighting among ministers in London over the future of Prime Minister Theresa May gathered pace. Davis and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, shook hands before the start of four days of talks on the priority issues identified by ...

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• 17 July

  Merkel’s rival channels Macron with call to spend

  

  Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel’s main domestic challenger, Martin Schulz, joined international criticism of Germany’s budget surplus as he sought to gain an opening 10 weeks out from federal elections. Schulz, a Social Democrat whose party has been Merkel’s coalition partner for the past four years, pledged on Sunday to guarantee that surplus revenue would go towards spending on infrastructure if ...

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• 17 July

  Prez contender in Rwanda sees intimidation as test

  Bloomberg The last time Rwanda held presidential elections, opposition leader Frank Habineza’s deputy was killed and he fled into European exile. Seven years on, he sees his candidacy in next month’s vote as a cautious step towards greater political freedoms in the tiny East African country. The August 4 election will be the first time Habineza, who leads the Democratic ...

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• 17 July

  UK’s Brexit chaos leaves EU friends, foes bemused

  

  Theresa May’s goal at this point in the Brexit negotiations was to be a strong British prime minister —between European Union leaders. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. Instead, as Brexit Secretary David Davis heads to Brussels for the second round of negotiations, EU officials and politicians are looking at a Britain where senior ministers openly disagree about their ...

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• 17 July

  China’s anti-addiction drive ruins video games

  

  Shareholders of Tencent Holdings Ltd., the world’s biggest video game company, panicked last week. People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, singled out ‘Honour of Kings,’ Tencent’s biggest game, for an unusually high-profile criticism. ‘Poison,’ the paper declared of a game played by roughly one in seven Chinese. “Constantly spreading ‘negative energy.’” It linked the game to ...

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• 17 July

  For ECB, better to be flexible than sorry

  

  I am giving you permission: You can safely ignore Amazon’s Prime Day, the annual fake shopping holiday Jeff Bezos invented two years ago.The European Central Bank is unnerving markets by remaining vague over the future of its bond-buying scheme. Yet, if investors listened carefully, they would detect an emerging framework for understanding what guides policy makers. The first principle is ...

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• 17 July

  Saudi on track to tender energy renewable projects

  

  KHOBAR / Reuters Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia has asked companies to qualify to bid for its first utility-scale wind power project at Dumat al-Jandal, the energy ministry said, keeping on track to tender the first round of renewable energy projects this year. Requests to qualify for the 400 megawatt (MW) wind project in the north of the kingdom will ...

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• 17 July

  Oil holds above $46 amid robust China economic growth

  

  Bloomberg Oil steadied above $46 a barrel in New York after China’s economic growth in the second quarter slightly surpassed expectations, while OPEC’s commitment to supply curbs faltered. Futures were little changed in New York, after rising 5.2 percent last week. The world’s second-largest economy expanded by 6.9 percent from a year earlier, compared with the 6.8 percent median estimate ...

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• 17 July

  Kuwait to boost oil-output capacity from 2030

  

  Bloomberg Kuwait plans to raise oil-production capacity to as much as 4.75 million barrels a day after 2030 as the OPEC member builds refineries in Asia to process more of its crude, the head of state-run Kuwait Petroleum International Ltd. said. The Gulf country, which currently can pump up to 3.15 million barrels a day, has plans to increase capacity ...

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