Headlines

A judge ruled that Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva must stand trial for allegedly using his influence to obtain government loans for a construction company seeking contracts in Angola, the prosecutors’ office said Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Judge Vallisney de Souza Oliveira accepted charges filed Monday by prosecutors in Brasília accusing Mr. da Silva of corruption, money laundering, influence peddling and conspiracy. If found guilty, Mr. da Silva, who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, could face up to 35 years in prison. Mr.

Low oil prices and an increasingly costly war in Yemen have torn a yawning hole in the Saudi budget and created a crisis that has led to cuts in public spending, reductions in take-home pay and benefits for government workers and a host of new fees and fines, the International New York Times reported. Huge subsidies for fuel, water and electricity that encourage overconsumption are being curtailed. For Almarai, one of the top brands in the Middle East, that will mean $133 million from the bottom line this year, company officials said.

Former telecommunications equipment giant Nortel Networks Ltd reached an agreement on Wednesday to divvy up the $7.3 billion raised from liquidating the failed company, clearing the way for pensioners and bondholders to get paid after a seven-year wait, Reuters reported. The agreement provides 24 percent or $1.8 billion of the cash for Nortel's former U.S. business. Nortel estates in Canada and Europe will receive 57 percent and 18 percent each, the former company said in a court filing.

China Construction Bank Corp., the nation’s second-largest lender, said it plans to raise 24 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) with Wuhan Iron & Steel Group for a fund that will help lower the unprofitable Chinese steelmaker’s debt levels, Bloomberg News reported. The two companies have already raised 12 billion yuan in the first stage of fundraising after reaching an agreement on Aug. 18, the Beijing-based lender said in a statement on its website on Tuesday. A representative for Wuhan Steel couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Deutsche Bank has received a cautious vote of creditor confidence. The German lender is issuing expensive debt, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. That shows it can get access to markets, despite a feared $14 billion American regulatory fine. It is less powerful a signal than buying debt back, as Deutsche Bank did in February — but at least it shows that investors do not fear losses that could eat into senior debt. The German bank is issuing like gangbusters.

The consensus from countless currency trades is that the harder the Brexit, the poorer the British and the weaker their currency. At least this is easier than having to drive down wages. Greece, another country revealed blow by punishing blow to be poorer than it thought, might envy the stabilising influence of the UK’s falling pound. Perhaps — but Greece’s problems run far deeper than having too rigid a currency, the Financial Times reported. Harder to believe is that underneath all this bargaining is an economy in any shape to grow rapidly any time soon.

European Union finance ministers signalled their resistance to new international banking rules which may require banks to hold more capital amid concerns about the impact of such policies on the European banking sector, the Irish Times reported. Meeting for the second day in Luxembourg on Tuesday, EU finance ministers discussed new rules being devised by an international supervisory group amid fears that they could put onerous capital requirements on banks.

The crisis at Ericsson deepened on Wednesday when the world’s biggest maker of mobile network equipment reported a 94 per cent plunge in quarterly operating profit and tumbling sales, the Irish Times reported. The Swedish company is struggling with a drop in spending by telecoms companies, with new 5G technology still years away, and stiff competition from Finland’s Nokia and China’s Huawei. Its shares dropped more than 15 per cent to an eight year low in early trading after it missed analysts’ forecasts for a fifth straight quarter, and said it saw no sign of a quick upturn.

Portugal’s souring investment climate and weak economic growth are raising concern across Europe and beyond that the country, which required an international bailout five years ago, could choke again on a debt that is now nearly 130% of its gross domestic product.

Parliament passed an extra spending package Tuesday to get Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic-revival plan back on track, but the Japanese leader is already facing calls to do more, The Wall Street Journal reported. A leading Abe adviser and some economists say the Bank of Japan is essentially offering unlimited funds to the government interest-free, and he shouldn’t let the opportunity pass. Opponents of ramping up such borrowing say that issuing more debt to finance more stimulus could send a signal that the nation has lost its fiscal discipline.