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  A mega meeting to check the booming illegal wildlife trade — valued at $20 billion a year — under way in Johannesburg has got stuck in an unseemly fight. The clash comes on the heels of a report which says that the population of African elephants has declined by 111,000 in the past ten years due to surge in ...

  From hungry migrant peasant to rock-star president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has played many roles over the years. Even so, taking the defendant’s chair in Latin America’s biggest political graft scandal will be a first. Lula has vehemently denied the charges — he’s accused of taking some $1.1 million in bribes disguised as home improvements from a contractor ...

  The muscle behind the U.S. economic expansion is the same as the recovery’s weakness, and it lies in one word: Mexico. Since the low in December 2009, employment in the U.S. has increased by 13.6 million workers. Forty-three percent of that growth, or 5.9 million workers, came from Hispanics — some born in the U.S., others immigrants. Mexico is ...

  The longer I work in the news media, the more I notice a problem with the way economics interacts with the world at large. Just to cite one example, economists often don’t take politics into account. As a result, econ models leave out important pieces, and the advice of economists often falls on deaf ears or is seen as ...

  AFP Credit growth to the private sector in the euro area was steady in August, European Central Bank (ECB) data showed on Tuesday, boosting expectations that the bank will refrain from adding firepower to monetary policy for now. Many of the European Central Bank’s measures aim to make access to credit easier, allowing people and businesses to invest and ...

  AFP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned on Tuesday that central banks are struggling to beat back deflationary forces and that governments need to spend to help them succeed. In a new assessment of global economic conditions, the IMF said many countries worldwide are battling disinflation — low and slowing inflation — due to weak global economic growth. If central ...

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc., the largest foreign lender in India by assets, plans to shut about 10 percent of its branches in the nation as more customers switch to the firm’s digital platforms to conduct their banking transactions, people familiar with the matter said. The lender, which has 44 branches nationwide, may close about five outlets to focus on larger ...

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc will reduce office space at its loss-making Japanese securities unit to trim expenses after cutting jobs earlier this year. The UK bank, which rents two floors of the Mori Tower in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hills office complex, will vacate about half of the 31st floor as early as this year while keeping its space on the 32nd, ...

  Bloomberg American Express Co. can prohibit merchants from steering customers to credit cards with lower transaction fees, a federal appeals court ruled in a blow to businesses trying to reduce annual card fees that run around $50 billion. The decision by the appeals court in Manhattan is the most definitive ruling on AmEx’s relationship with merchants. A federal judge ...

  Grangemouth / AFP A tanker carrying the first shipment of shale gas from the United States arrived on Tuesday in Britain, where there are currently no commercial fracking operations because of fierce public opposition. The ship arrived at Grangemouth, a sprawling energy complex on the River Forth near Edinburgh in Scotland, where the North Sea offshore oil and gas ...