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Bloomberg Czech consumer prices grew much less in March than the central bank expected, deepening a dilemma for rate setters who’ve pledged to continue tightening policy but differ on how quickly interest rates need to rise. The annual inflation rate declined for a fifth month, to 1.7 percent, moving further below the central bank’s target and missing its 2.3 percent ...

LONDON / Reuters SAP is revising how it prices its core business planning software after a legal crackdown against high-profile customers Diageo and AB InBev caused a backlash with its wider customer base, who feared they might be hit by hidden, indirect charges. The German company said on Tuesday it will offer a new model for sales, licence audits and ...

Bloomberg Italian industrial output unexpectedly declined in February, adding to signs that the euro region’s upswing may have passed its peak. Production decreased 0.5 percent from January, when it fell a revised 1.8 percent, national statistics office said in Rome on Tuesday. Economists had predicted it would expand 0.8 percent in February, according to the median of 24 forecasts in ...

Bloomberg Telecom Italia SpA’s board said it will take every legal action necessary to block activist investor Elliott Management Corp. from pushing ahead with its own slate of directors at the company’s next shareholder meeting. Elliott, Telecom Italia’s second-biggest shareholder after Vivendi SA, wants to replace six Vivendi-backed directors at Italy’s former phone monopoly with its own candidates at the ...

Bloomberg Glencore Plc, the world’s largest commodities trader, started to loosen ties with Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska after the US imposed harsh sanctions against his business empire. Glencore won’t proceed with a plan to swap its 8.75 percent stake in aluminum producer United Co. Rusal for shares in another one of Deripaska’s companies, London-listed En+ Group Plc. Chief Executive ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the US will respond “forcefully” to a suspected chemical weapons attack by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime over the weekend, after suggesting earlier that Russian President Vladimir Putin may share responsibility. “We’re making a decision on what we do in respect to the horrible attack that was made near Damascus and it will be met ...

Bloomberg An FBI raid on his personal lawyer’s office cut close to home for Donald Trump, prompting an angry reaction from the president that revived fears he might do the unthinkable and fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. “Attorney–client privilege is dead!,” Trump said early Tuesday in a posting on Twitter. He followed up with: “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!” In an ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron’s first annual checkup with the European Union’s budget doctor won’t be pretty. His government, which may gain from accelerating growth, is postponing the spending cuts needed to narrow the structural budget gap as required by the European Commission, say two people with knowledge of documents being sent to Brussels this month. With elements of the ...

Bloomberg The daughter of a Russian former double agent poisoned in southern England last month was discharged from hospital. Yulia Skripal, 33, was found collapsed on a bench in Salisbury alongside her father — Sergei Skripal — after being exposed to a nerve agent in an incident the British government blamed on Russia. Both patients have “responded exceptionally well” to ...

Bloomberg Malaysians will cast their vote on May 9 in what will be a showdown between caretaker Prime Minister Najib Razak and Mahathir Mohamad, the nation’s longest-serving premier. The campaign period will be shortened to 11 days, from 15 days in the 2013 election, with the nomination day for candidates set for April 28, Mohd Hashim Abdullah, chairman at the ...