The Argentinean government has submitted its final proposal to settle nearly $1.3 billion in sovereign debt to holdout creditors, offering a fresh bond swap at nearly one-sixth of the original value, reported Bloomberg on Sunday.
The Chinese government this week said it would oppose any Hong Kong Chief Executive who “plot to overthrow the rule of the Chinese Communist Party,” even though Beijing earlier promised universal suffrage for the special administrative region by 2017, reported Bloomberg.
The Brazilian Congress late Tuesday passed a new law that would give the country’s domestic workers the same employment rights as any other worker in the country, reported Reuters, bringing an end to nearly two decades of unequal treatment, where housemaids and other staff did not have access to overtime or other healthcare benefits.
Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday upgraded Turkey’s sovereign credit rating from BB to BB+, placing the nation one level below an investment-grade rating and setting the economic outlook to stable.
In a statement, cited by the Financial Times, S&P said that the upgrade reflected Turkey’s gradual rebalancing of their economy; and lauded the Turkish government for making progress made in solving the Kurdish problem.
Russia and South Africa, who hold nearly 80 percent of the world’s platinum-group metal reserves combined, could create an ‘OPEC-like’ trading bloc in order to control exports of the precious metal, reported Bloomberg News on Wednesday.
Ecuador could auction off more than three million hectares of Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies as part of a global road-show to develop its oil industry, reported The Guardian on Tuesday, though the Ecuadorian government may face protests by indigenous groups, who claim to have not consented to any oil projects.
The US Federal Reserve has warned Citigroup to fix “deficiencies” in its anti-money laundering controls, reported the Wall Street Journal, giving the financial institution two months to submit a written compliance procedural plan addressing steps such as policies and funding for personnel.
Cyprus’s central bank governor Panicos Demetriades has called for a “superhuman effort” to meet a Thursday deadline for reopening banks, warning that any further delay could spur further doubts about the economy and spark more unrest – as thousands of Cypriots protested on the streets on Tuesday.
The World Bank on Tuesday said that it was ready to support the new development bank being established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), in a statement just hours after the groups of emerging nations reached a deal to challenge nearly seven decades of World Bank dominance.
Russian prosecutors and tax authorities on Monday conducted a surprise “audit” at the Moscow office of human rights group Amnesty International’s (AI), reported the New York Times, demanding for a list of documents and tax forms to be handed over – in what activists have now described as a month-long state clampdown on nongovernmental groups.
