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Washington / AFP US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told Europe’s powerful competition commissioner that the EU review of tax breaks given to multinationals could have an “outsized” impact on US companies. In a recent meeting , Lew expressed concerns to Margrethe Vestager, who is leading the campaign to end excessive tax breaks by EU members to huge multinational firms, that ...

Reuters Argentina’s auto production will hold steady or drop slightly this year as sales are hit by the steep recession in main trading partner Brazil, the ADEFA association of vehicle makers said on Saturday. “The external situation will remain complicated,” the president of ADEFA, Enrique Alemany, said in a statement published online. “There are no prospects for a Brazilian recovery.” ...

Reuters A United Nations body has cut its modest economic growth projection for Latin America in 2016 and is now forecasting an average contraction in regional gross domestic product of 0.6 percent. The Santiago-based Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean, citing low commodities prices and financial market volatility, cut its prior call for 0.2 percent average economic growth ...

Reuters California will increase the amount of money new parents can receive through the state’s paid family leave program under a bill to be signed on Monday by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown. The measure, passed last month by the state legislature, would increase the amount paid to new parents or people caring for a sick family member to as much ...

Bloomberg Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla signed an executive order declaring an emergency period for its Government Development Bank to help keep it operating, while declining to halt or suspend its debt obligations. The Development Bank, which lends to the U.S. commonwealth and its municipalities and is running out of cash, faces a $422 million principal and interest payment ...

BRASILIA / Reuters Brazil’s inflation rate slowed sharply in March to below 10 percent a year, the lowest in nine months, although it still remained well above the government’s target despite a severe recession and one of the world’s highest interest rates. Consumer prices as measured by the benchmark IPCA index rose 9.39 percent in the 12 months through March, ...

Beirut / AFP The IS group is under growing pressure on several fronts in Syria as rival forces battle to wrest territory from the extremists, who are excluded from a six-week-old ceasefire. The scramble by the regime, anti-government rebels and Kurdish militia to recapture areas from IS has been given added urgency by the prospect of a possible federal system. ...

Paris / AFP The ceasefire in Syria “is about to collapse,” an official from the opposition said in an interview published on Sunday, just days before the resumption of peace talks in Geneva. “Over the last 10 days we have seen a very serious deterioration and the ceasefire is about to collapse,” BassmaKodmani, a member of the High Negotiations Committee ...

Beirut / AFP Clashes around Syria’s second city Aleppo have killed at least 16 pro-regime fighters and 19 members of Al-Qaeda’s affiliate and allied rebel groups within a 24-hour period, a monitor said on Sunday. “Fierce fighting raged past midnight (Sunday) on several fronts in the south of Aleppo province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah ...

Philippines / AFP A Philippine offensive against the extremist Abu Sayyaf group after a spate of kidnappings has left 18 soldiers and five fighters dead in the worst violence in the troubled south this year, authorities said on Sunday. Saturday’s clashes on the strife-torn island of Basilan came after an April 8 ransom deadline set by Abu Sayyaf, who had ...