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Hanoi / AFP Vietnam’s rubber-stamp parliament approved 21 new minister positions on Saturday, state media reported, finishing off a leadership reshuffle among Communist top brass ahead of a visit by US President Barack Obama next month. The National Assembly approved three new deputy prime ministers and 18 other cabinet members, according to the legislature’s official website, concluding a change in ...

Washington / AFP Donald Trump may have a difficult but not improbable route to the Republican presidential nomination. When it comes to ultimate victory in November’s general election, however, the real estate tycoon faces a far more forbidding path. He still needs to repel the late revolt by rival Ted Cruz as the two gallop toward the campaign season’s final ...

Sudan / AFP Sudan’s conflict-hit Darfur region starts voting on Monday on whether to unify its five states, a long-standing demand of rebels seeking greater autonomy, but ongoing instability means insurgents are boycotting the referendum. The three-day vote is expected to maintain the five-state system, which President Omar Al Bashir’s ruling party says is more efficient but which observers say ...

Bloomberg Home prices are surging in London’s outer districts as improvements to rail networks and lower prices lure Londoners further out of the expensive city center. Home values in West Ealing, where the commute time to London Liverpool Street will fall by half when a Crossrail train station opens in 2019, climbed 29 percent in the 12 months through February, ...

Bloomberg Marriott International Inc.’s $12.4 billion acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Inc. was approved by shareholders of both companies, cementing a deal to create the world’s largest hotel operator following a tumultuous bidding war. Holders of more than 97 percent of Marriott shares voting at a company meeting, representing more than 79 percent of outstanding shares, voted in favor ...

MADRID / Reuters The sale of hundreds of subsidised flats by Madrid’s former city council to private equity investors such as Blackstone was riddled with flaws, a preliminary report from a local auditing body said. The 2013 sale has long been a target of public anger in Spain at a time when the economy is still recovering from a deep ...

Bloomberg American household borrowing climbed more than forecast in February from a month earlier, led by financing for automobiles and college education. The $17.2 billion increase followed a $14.9 billion gain in the prior month that was larger than previously estimated, Federal Reserve figures showed on Friday. Non-revolving credit, which includes student and automobile loans, rose while revolving credit, which ...

VANCOUVER / Reuters British Columbia said it had reached a C$480 million ($369.7 million) deal to sell a large swath of land on Vancouver’s exclusive west side to three local aboriginal groups, opening up the property for potential redevelopment. The deal, which includes two parcels totaling a combined 38.8 acres (15.7 hectares), will give the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations ...

Dubai /EMIRATES BUSINESS Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza), the flagship freezone entity of Dubai and the trade and logistics hub for the wider Middle East region, has achieved strong performance in terms of the quality of investments and the number of new companies registered in 2015. HE Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman and CEO of DP World and Chairman of ...

WAM Etihad Rail, the developer and operator of the UAE’s US$11 billion national railway network, has announced that it has transported more than 5.24 million tonnes of granulated sulphur in the first 18 months of Stage One operations for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), from sources at Shah and Habshan to its point of export at Ruwais. Equivalent to ...