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  Tokyo / Bloomberg Environmental groups urged the Japanese government to use the Group of Seven summit meeting to be held from Friday in western Japan as a platform to announce a shift away from fossil-fuel financing. The groups, including 350.org Japan and Friends of the Earth Japan, staged rallies outside government offices in Tokyo on Thursday ahead of submitting ...

  Shanghai / Bloomberg China National Chemical Corp. extended its tender offer for Syngenta AG shares by more than a month as it waits for regulatory approval for its planned $43 billion takeover of the Swiss seed and pesticide maker. State-owned ChemChina offered in February to buy Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta for $465 a share in cash plus a special dividend ...

  Bloomberg Euro-area officials are weighing a proposal to purchase loans that member states made to Greece in a move that would ease the nation’s debt burden, a precondition for the International Monetary Fund’s involvement in a bailout program. Senior finance ministry officials from the currency bloc held a conference call on Wednesday evening to discuss ways to make Greece’s ...

  New York / BLOOMBERG Federal Reserve officials want to raise interest rates in June. Now, it is up to the U.S. economy to confirm their view that slow growth in the first quarter was temporary. Minutes of the April 26-27 Federal Open Market Committee meeting released on Wednesday in Washington used the word “June” six times in a policy ...

  HONG KONG / WAM Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, and his accompanying delegation, on Wednesday participated in the opening of the Belt and Road Summit, being held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibitions Centre. The two-day event is expected to attract at least 2,000 investors, service providers, project owners and operators from ASEAN countries and ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that the UAE pays ample attention to economic and trade relations with Cost Rica. He added that the trade exchange between the two countries witnessed a continuous growth from US$3 million in 1999 to $25 million in 2014. This was revealed ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japan sidestepped a recession after its economy grew in the first quarter, preliminary data showed on Wednesday, but efforts to cement recovery in the world’s number three economy were gaining little traction. Gross domestic product expanded by 0.4 percent between January and March — or 1.7 percent at an annualised rate — after a contraction in ...

  CAIRO/ AP A leading international rights group on Wednesday released a report documenting atrocities by Libya’s IS affiliate — including instances of “crucifixions” and shooting a man to death for “cursing God” — in the coastal city of Sirte, a stronghold of the militants. Human Rights Watch recounts “scenes of horror” that followed the city’s seizure by IS militants ...

  COLOMBO / AFP Massive landslides triggered by torrential rains crashed down onto three villages in the central hills of Sri Lanka, and more than 200 families were missing on Wednesday and feared buried under the mud and debris, the Sri Lankan Red Cross said. Sixteen bodies have already been recovered and about 180 people have been rescued from the ...

  Washington / AFP Hillary Clinton claimed a narrow victory in Kentucky as she sought to put away Bernie Sanders, but her resilient rival for the Democratic presidential nomination bounced back to snatch a win in Oregon. With the Kentucky race too close for most US networks to call a winner, Clinton declared victory shortly after Kentucky’s secretary of state ...