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  Bloomberg India forecasts its growth will slow to a three-year low even before the effects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cash clampdown start to show. Gross domestic product will grow 7.1 percent in the year through March, the Statistics Ministry said in a statement. However, the numbers don’t consider data from November onward, when Modi shocked the nation by ...

  Bloomberg Southeast Asia’s worst-performing currency of 2016 is in for another tough year with President Rodrigo Duterte’s spending plans seen boosting imports just as rising US interest rates spur capital outflows. The peso is forecast to be collateral damage as an economy growing faster than 7 percent and the government’s infrastructure program drive demand for inward shipments. This year ...

  Bloomberg Cofco Corp.’s Matt Jansen quit as the head of its international commodity trading unit, the latest setback to the ambitions of China’s biggest food company to create an agriculture merchant to rival the world’s largest. The firm named Cofco Vice President Jingtao Chi as his replacement. Jansen, who became chief executive officer of Cofco Agri Ltd. less than ...

  Bloomberg Chinese authorities plan to propose that this year’s fiscal deficit stay at 3 percent of gross domestic product, unchanged from 2016, according to people familiar with the matter, signaling further tolerance for slower economic growth. The budget deficit, usually announced in March, requires approval by the National People’s Congress and is subject to change, said the people, who ...

  BEIRUT / AP At least 43 people were killed when a car bomb ripped through the center of a busy commercial district of a rebel-held Syrian town along the Turkish border, damaging buildings and leaving rescue workers searching for survivors amid the wreckage, activists and rescue workers said. The explosion went off early Saturday afternoon outside a local court ...

  WASHINGTON / AP President-elect Donald Trump says he’ll nominate former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats as national intelligence director. Trump says in a statement that Coats — a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee before retiring from Congress last year — will lead the new administration’s “ceaseless vigilance against those who seek to do us harm.” The post requires Senate confirmation. ...

  LONDON/ AP The British Red Cross says overcrowding in hospital emergency rooms has become a “humanitarian crisis.” The charity says it has dispatched volunteers to help patients go home and free up hospital beds. It claims cuts to social-care funding by the Conservative government mean some patients can’t be discharged because there is no support available, putting pressure on ...

  CAIRO / AP The Libyan military reports that a captured militant has confirmed the killing of Wissam Ben Hamid, the leader of militia groups in the eastern city of Benghazi. Army spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmary reported that the captured spokesman of the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, a coalition of armed groups controlling two remaining militia strongholds in Libya’s second ...

  BEIJING / AP The Taiwanese leader’s trip to the Americas starting on Saturday will be scrutinized by Beijing for signs that the incoming US president’s team will risk its ire by further engaging with the self-ruled island China considers its territory. President Tsai Ing-wen pledged to bolster Taiwan’s international profile as she set off on a trip to reinforce relations ...

  AMBALANTOTA / AP At least 21 people were injured on Saturday in violent clashes between Sri Lankan government supporters and villagers marching against what they say is a plan to take over private land for an industrial zone in which China will have a major stake. Police used tear gas and water cannons to try to break up the clashes, ...