June, 2017

• 11 June

  Italy holds local vote as chance of snap national election fades

  Bloomberg Italians voted in the first round of municipal elections on Sunday in a test of the country’s political mood after a multi-party deal on a new electoral law unraveled this week, making the prospect of a snap national vote this year unlikely. “It was our duty to try, but the game’s over,” former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told daily ...

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• 11 June

  Macron poised for majority as France votes

  

  Bloomberg Polling stations opened across France on Sunday as voters begin electing a parliament that will determine how much power recently elected President Emmanuel Macron will actually have. If polls are to be believed, it will be a lot. The latest surveys suggest Macron’s Republic on the Move movement, or REM, will win a comfortable majority in the 577-seat National ...

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• 11 June

  North Korea says it’s ‘not far away’ from ICBM test-firing

  Bloomberg North Korea says it has moved closer to test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile with the potential of hitting the US mainland. “US President Donald Trump has said the world will never see North Korea reach the final stage of developing nuclear weapons that could reach the US, but recent strategic weapon tests have proved the country is ‘not far ...

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• 11 June

  Immigration better solved by opportunity, not walls: Merkel

  

  Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a shot at President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall, telling an audience in Mexico that a physical barrier won’t resolve any country’s immigration issues. “We must fight against the causes that lead people to abandon their homes,” Merkel said at a business event at Mexico City’s Interactive Museum of Economics. “And constructing walls isn’t ...

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• 11 June

  The moralist versus the dealmaker

  

  What does the FBI director do when he suspects the president is a manipulative liar? The answer in James Comey’s case is that he writes memos, tries to evade demands for loyalty — and anguishes about protecting himself and the FBI. But by Comey’s own admission, perhaps he should have done more. The big news had already surfaced before Comey’s ...

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• 11 June

  Almost everyone is a winner in India stocks this year

  

  There’s something about the Indian stock market this year that’s turning the serious business of managing money into a kindergarten spoon race: Everybody is a winner. Well, almost everybody. Among offshore funds that primarily invest in India, the top 30, which between them account for $40 billion in assets, have produced average returns of almost 25% so far in 2017, ...

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• 11 June

  May’s election gamble goes disastrously wrong

  

  UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s election gamble has failed disastrously. The consequences are dire for her party and government, and could be equally bad for her country’s relationship with Europe. May had hoped to increase her Conservative majority in Parliament, and instead has seen it wiped out. The Tories are the largest party in the House of Commons and with ...

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• 11 June

  What Comey said and what it means

  As former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee, it’s useful to bear two things in mind: What he’s describing isn’t normal. And it isn’t going away. In a written statement released before his appearance, Comey depicted a disturbing sequence of events related to the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. President Donald Trump repeatedly ...

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• 11 June

  Safer vehicles can make terror attacks harder

  

  ‘Enough is enough,’ UK Prime Minister Theresa May declared after the London terror attack, the third one this year. But what she proposed to counter the terrorist attacks was, essentially, some freedom of speech restrictions, more powers for law enforcement and longer sentences for terror-related offenses — the same old toolbox that has been used for almost two decades. There ...

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• 11 June

  Europe gets a bank rescue right, at last

  

  European regulators have pushed a dying Spanish bank into the arms of Banco Santander SA, the euro zone’s biggest lender by market value. The takeover of Banco Popular Espanol SA saves face for regulators and politicians eager to avoid an embarrassing taxpayer rescue. It allows Santander to boost its own balance sheet and scoop up a rival for a song. ...

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