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Bloomberg Angela Merkel is facing pressure to put her stamp on Germany’s next government as the chancellor begins talks on uniting four disparate parties into a coalition to govern Europe’s biggest economy. Almost a month after her Christian Democratic-led bloc emerged weakened from a national election, Merkel meets separately with the pro-market Free Democratic Party and the Greens on Wednesday ...

Bloomberg South African President Jacob Zuma’s decision to fire communist party leader Blade Nzimande from his cabinet is widening a rift with two of the African National Congress’s closest allies before a key leadership conference in December. In dismissing Nzimande as higher education minister, Zuma, 75, targeted the communist party, which along with the main labor confederation, Cosatu, has said ...

As President Trump prepares to head to Asia next month for his most important overseas trip yet, foreign intelligence services are undoubtedly trying to assemble personality profiles to explain this unconventional, risk-taking, domineering president to the leaders he will meet. How will they describe Trump? Probably not with the same hyperbole we sometimes use in our daily news commentary. Foreign ...

Don’t celebrate too soon. That was the key message as policy makers and investors left Washington on Sunday after attending the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. For once the mood was upbeat. The IMF bumped up its forecast for global economic growth this year and next. Stocks are surging, credit spreads are tight and market ...

Just like in the summer of 2014, fighting in northern Iraq is sending ripples through the oil market. A lot has changed in the meantime. Back then, IS was sweeping all before it; now, the wannabe caliphate’s collapse is allowing old tensions between Baghdad and the region’s Kurds to resurface. A lot has changed in the oil market, too. Brent ...

President Donald Trump’s decertification of the Iranian nuclear deal is a mistake. Yes, its supporters have exaggerated the agreement’s benefits — but on balance, the world is better off with it than without it. In the near term, the decertification doesn’t really change much. The deal will remain in effect while Congress considers re-imposing sanctions on Iran, in effect killing ...

Five or six years ago, with the hangover from the Great Recession still dominating the national conversation, macroeconomic policy was all the rage. Now, it’s an afterthought, with issues like health care, trade and energy taking center stage. But behind the scenes, macroeconomists have been rethinking the basics of how they approach their discipline. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, ...

Could the end of the petrodollar be in sight? Moves by China to set up its own crude futures contract and invest in Saudi Arabian Oil Co., or Saudi Aramco, are leading some to think so. Beijing will compel the Saudis to trade oil in yuan, CNBC quoted High Frequency Economics founder Carl Weinberg as saying last week. Crude contracts ...

Now that US politicians know that Facebook is unable to stop malicious actors from using it to influence public opinion, the social network is doing its best to avoid tougher regulatory treatment. It shouldn’t be able to get off so easily, though: It must admit it’s really a media company and accept legal liability for the material it publishes. As ...

Bloomberg The dollar strengthened and Treasury yields rose after traders added to bets on higher US interest rates, while the S&P 500 Index climbed towards a fresh record. US equities were bolstered by IBM’s forecast for its first sales growth in five years and better-than-estimated earnings at Abbott Laboratories. Oil gained amid signs of declining US stockpiles. The Stoxx Europe ...