Month: September 2018

After lengthy delays, an $8.2 billion revamp of a colonial-era rail line snaking from the Arabian Sea to the foothills of the Hindu Kush has become a test of Pakistan's ability to rethink signature Chinese "Silk Road" projects due to debt concerns. The rail megaproject…

Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have agreed to pay a total of $40 million and make a series of concessions to settle a government lawsuit alleging Musk duped investors with misleading statements about a proposed buyout of the company. The settlement with the Securities…

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland postponed her U.N. speech Saturday as free-trade talks between the U.S. and Canada intensified. Freeland had been scheduled to deliver Canada's address to the General Assembly in New York, but Canada exchanged the slot with another country. Freeland may…

U.S. consumer spending increased steadily in August, supporting expectations of solid economic growth in the third quarter, while a measure of underlying inflation remained at the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target for a fourth straight month. Economists said Friday's report from the Commerce Department should…

Tesla without Elon Musk at the wheel? To many of the electric car maker's customers and investors, that would be unthinkable. But that's what government securities regulators now want to see. The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal court to oust Musk as…

Italy’s stock market fell sharply Friday after the new populist, euroskeptic government announced a sharp public spending increase that will push the budget deficit to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product next year, risking a collision with the European Union. The benchmark FTSE MIB dropped…

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello flew to New York this week on a mission: convince potential tourists that the hurricane-ravaged island was ready for their return. But Puerto Rico's recovery from last year's Hurricane Maria has been a "mixed bag," Rossello told Reuters on Thursday, acknowledging that the bankrupt U.S. territory,…

U.S. securities regulators on Thursday accused Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk of fraud and sought to ban him as an officer of a public company, saying he made a series of "false and misleading" tweets about potentially taking the electric car company private last month. Musk, 47, is…

The United States and Japan have agreed to begin negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement, reducing the prospect that Washington might impose tariffs against another trading partner. “We’ve agreed today to start trade negotiations between the United States and Japan,” U.S. President Donald Trump said…

Ford chief Jim Hackett on Wednesday ramped up his warnings about the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, saying his company was seeing profits slashed by $1 billion. Hackett said the global automaker could face more damage if the trade confrontations were not resolved quickly.…

Somalia's finance minister says World Bank grants to the government are a sign the country has "trustable leadership" again after decades of chaos and corruption. The World Bank said Tuesday it will provide $80 million in grants to Somalia's federal government, the bank's first direct…

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised a key interest rate for the third time this year in response to a strong U.S. economy and signaled that it expected to maintain a pace of gradual rate hikes. The Fed lifted its short-term rate — a benchmark…

The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development warns the world economy remains fragile, one decade after the collapse of the U.S. financial titan Lehman Brothers triggered a global economic crisis. In its report Trade and Development Report 2018: Power, Platforms and the Free Trade Delusion,…

Trade conflicts, rising debt and the potential impact from rising interest rates in the U.S. will likely dampen growth in the coming year, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday in an update of its regional economic outlook report.  The Manila, Philippines-based regional lender said Wednesday…

After losing his job with a foreign food company in March, Alexander Costa surveyed Brazil's anemic labor market and decided to start selling cheap lunches by the beach in Rio de Janeiro to try and provide for his young family. "I could have stayed home,…

The five remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal have agreed to establish a special payment system to allow companies to continue doing business with the regime, bypassing new sanctions imposed by the United States. Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran issued…