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Bloomberg Qatar’s AA credit rating was affirmed by Standard and Poor’s, which cited the nation’s ample natural gas reserves and an infrastructure investment program as drivers of continued growth. The country is standing out amid the spate of downgrades S&P has issued for energy exporters whose credit outlooks have worsened on plunging oil prices. The rating company has already cut ...

Bloomberg Potential supply cuts have the price of metallurgical coal — the kind used to make steel — poised to do something it hasn’t done since October 2013: Rise. The benchmark contract for the coal may gain by a few dollars in the second quarter amid speculation that China is curtailing supply amid high costs, Mark Levin, a coal analyst ...

Bloomberg What is the oil rally running on? “Gasoline!” cry bulls. “Fumes!” cry bears (and the odd headline writer). To find out who is right, it is worth comparing this rally with the one that happened almost exactly a year earlier. The similarity doesn’t end there. This chart shows what happened with oil prices at the start of this year ...

Washington / AFP US employers defied a global slowdown and pumped up hiring in February, fending off worries about financial market turmoil and the oil industry crash. The Labour Department reported that companies and government authorities added a much better-than-expected 242,000 jobs last month, and the figures for the previous two months were revised higher. Steady growth in consumer spending ...

Bloomberg Puerto Rico’s main water utility may not have enough money to repay certain bonds if it needs to redirect funds to pay contractors, according to a filing on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s website. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority’s board on Feb. 16 approved an alternative plan to divert money to pay contractors if the agency fails ...

SAO PAULA / Bloomberg Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed to battle his opponents in the streets in a defiant speech, hours after being briefly detained as part of a probe into a massive corruption scheme. Wearing a red shirt with his leftist Worker’s Party yellow star on his chest, Lula gave an emotional speech to supporters where ...

Bloomberg Argentina plans to mark its return to global capital markets in mid-April by issuing $11.68 billion of bonds to yield 7.5 to 8 percent, Finance Ministry officials told Congress while presenting a debt bill to clear the way for a settlement with most holdout creditors. After reaching a milestone deal with the largest holdout creditors led by billionaire Paul ...

BLOOMBERG Amazon.com Inc. is dialing back on the security built into its tablets. Bad timing. The Web retailer decided late last year to remove the ability to encrypt data stored on its Fire tablets, a few months before a battle erupted between Apple Inc. and the FBI over the decryption of information locked in a terrorist’s iPhone. As a result, ...

Bloomberg Slovaks are voting in a general election that looks set to hand a third term to Prime Minister Robert Fico, who’s pledging to raise living standards in the eastern euro-area member and protect its citizens from the European Union’s migrant crisis. Having presided over booming growth, Fico’s Smer party holds a strong lead in opinion polls. His support has ...

HAVANA / AP After two years of negotiations, Cuba and the European Union are close to sealing an agreement to normalize relations that soured two decades ago, officials said Friday. Cuban and EU negotiators said talks could be concluded for the March 10-11 visit to Havana by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. “We have covered all the chapters of ...