Headlines

Austrian prosecutors said on Tuesday they were bringing an insolvency-related fraud case against the former billionaire founder of the collapsed Signa property group, Rene Benko, Reuters reported. Benko has been in custody for more than five months as the Central Prosecutors' Office for Economic Crimes and Corruption (WKStA) carries out a wide-ranging investigation into a range of offences including several counts of fraud he and other unnamed people are suspected of.

Thames Water has been accused of “holding a gun to the taxpayer’s head” by warning it may have to be nationalised if it is not handed a reprieve on historical fines, The Telegraph reported. MPs said Thames was asking to be “let off the hook” as it warned there was a “material uncertainty” over whether a £17bn rescue deal led by creditors would succeed.

The New York federal judge who gave Argentina until yesterday to cede its controlling stake in YPF SA to holders of a $16 billion judgment granted the South American nation a three-day extension to seek a longer delay from an appeals court, Bloomberg News reported. U.S.

China’s economy showed resilience in a turbulent first half of the year, remaining on track to hit its official growth target for the year despite President Trump’s shifting tariff assault, the Wall Street Journal reported. China said that its gross domestic product expanded 5.2% in the second quarter of 2025 compared with a year earlier, slowing a touch from the 5.4% pace set in the first three months of the year and coming in line with economists’ expectations.

Canada's annual inflation rate rose to 1.9% in June, meeting analysts' expectations, as increases in the price of automobiles, clothing and footwear pushed the index higher, data showed on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The consumer price index was at 1.7% in the prior month. Statistics Canada said on a monthly basis the CPI increased 0.1%, matching analysts' forecasts. CPI has been under 2%, or the mid-point of the Bank of Canada's inflation target range, for three consecutive months.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Tuesday the International Monetary Fund had a key role to play in tackling the buildup of risky imbalances in the world economy, many of them coming from the United States and China, Reuters reported. In a speech he was due to give to Britain's finance elite, Bailey acknowledged the concerns of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration about the danger of IMF overreach. But the BoE boss said attempts to fix the problems in the world economy - chief among them the big U.S.

Singapore's economic growth is likely to slow in the second half of the year despite a better-than-expected performance in the first half because of uncertainties over tariffs, the head of its central bank said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) managing director Chia Der Jiun, speaking during the release of the central bank's annual report, said this was in line with the central bank's expectations of slower global economic activity and weaker external demand. Chia said there was considerable uncertainty given the range of potential outcomes.

Factory output in the eurozone partly rebounded from a tariff-induced slump in May, but trade is likely to remain a headwind even as manufacturers harbor hopes of better times on government pledges to increase defense and infrastructure spending, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industrial production increased 1.7% from April across the 20 nations that make up the eurozone, according to figures released by the European Union’s statistics agency on Tuesday. The increase reverses a sharp drop a month earlier, when the imposition of tariffs led to a fall in demand for European goods.

Mexico's banking regulator slapped three financial institutions, which had been sanctioned by the U.S. for alleged money laundering, with more than 185 million pesos ($9.81 million) in fines in June, local media reported on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The U.S. Treasury last month prohibited certain transactions with Mexico's CIBanco, Intercam Banco and Vector Casa de Bolsa as part of fentanyl sanctions. The fines were largely related to money-laundering prevention, local media reported, citing data published by the regulator.

The Trump administration announced on Monday a duty of about 17% on fresh tomatoes from Mexico, which account for two-thirds of the tomatoes eaten in the U.S., and the end of an export deal between the two countries, Reuters reported. The Commerce Department said the U.S. was withdrawing from a 2019 agreement with Mexico that suspended an antidumping duty investigation on Mexican tomatoes, whose exports to the U.S. are valued at $3 billion a year.