Bloomberg The European Union will challenge Theresa May on Wednesday when it publishes a draft Brexit treaty that ignores some of the UK prime minister’s most important demands. The bloc is planning to set out in legal detail how it expects the UK to depart in just over one year’s time, and the terms of a transition period that will ...
Read More »Chemical weapons watchdog investigates attacks in Ghouta
AMSTERDAM / Reuters The world’s chemical weapons watchdog is investigating recent attacks in the besieged, rebel-held Syrian region of eastern Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions were used, sources told Reuters. The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) opened an investigation into reports of the repeated use of chlorine bombs this month in the district near the ...
Read More »Trump’s North Korea point man is set to step down
Bloomberg Joseph Yun, the US special representative for North Korea, is set to step down, the State Department said, in a move that comes as Kim Jong Un’s regime says it’s willing to hold talks with Washington. A North Korean official told South Korea this week that the door was open for dialogue, and Washington said it was willing to ...
Read More »Ramaphosa walks tightrope in South African cabinet overhaul
Bloomberg South African President Cyril Ramaphosa treaded a fine line between his ruling party’s rival factions when he named steady hands to key cabinet posts and purged some of his predecessor Jacob Zuma’s most ineffectual appointees. While keeping a handful of Zuma loyalists in largely minor positions, Ramaphosa brought back as finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, who Zuma replaced in late ...
Read More »Venezuelan opposition renews bid to delay vote
Bloomberg Venezuela’s opposition has renewed private talks with the government in a bid to push back the date of the country’s presidential elections as President Nicolas Maduro’s administration seeks some legitimacy for the vote, according to people familiar with the matter. Two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, former Governor Henri Falcon and lawmakers from two of Venezuela’s largest opposition parties participated ...
Read More »Indonesian presidential race firms as Prabowo-Jokowi rerun
Bloomberg Former general Prabowo Subianto is firming as a candidate for Indonesia’s presidential election, raising the prospect of a rerun of the bitter 2014 race that saw Joko Widodo take power in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. In the strongest signal yet, the co-founder of the main opposition party known as Gerindra has indicated that Prabowo would be the party’s nominee ...
Read More »The rules of the game are now changing on the Fed
When asked why his opinions frequently changed, economist John Maynard Keynes is said to have responded with some variation of “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Well, it’s time the Federal Reserve changed its thinking on monetary policy. Economies are becoming increasingly driven by real and financial asset prices, meaning financial stability can no longer be relegated to ...
Read More »AirAsia’s cheap date won’t be easy to please
Budget airlines are all about cheap flights — AirAsia Bhd. really brings new meaning to the term. Its non-fuel costs are the lowest in the entire industry. At 1.73 US cents per available seat kilometer, they’re less than half of Ryanair Holdings Plc’s 3.59 cents and about one-sixth of the amount paid by the big three US carriers, according to ...
Read More »Unilever’s problem with London goes way beyond Brexit
If Unilever NV picks Rotterdam over London as its new headquarters, Britain will need to ask itself why. One reason might be that the UK’s corporate culture puts shareholders first—and this money-grabbing ethos is behind the times. Theresa May’s government is braced for the Anglo-Dutch consumer group to leave London, the Financial Times reported. Unilever started reviewing its dual-headed structure ...
Read More »European Union can do a lot more with its money
For all the talk of the costs that “Brexit” will impose on Britain, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union will not be painless for the rest of the bloc either. One immediate problem will be how to fill the gap in the EU budget resulting from Britain’s departure. The UK is a net contributor to the EU budget. Even ...
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