Headlines

Ukraine’s bailout faces “significant uncertainty” even if the government is able to secure a debt-restructuring deal, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday. The IMF’s comments, made in a report on the fund’s bailout program for Ukraine, come as the finance ministry in Kiev signaled it expected to reach a debt-relief deal this week with creditors, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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They call it the “precariat”. In a continent known for strong employee protections, more than half of the eurozone’s young workers are in temporary jobs, churning from one shortlived contract to the next, the Financial Times reported. In France, permanent jobs account for just 16 per cent of new contracts, down from a quarter in 2000. In Spain, almost seven in 10 young workers are on temporary contracts. The share of the eurozone’s 15 to 24-year-old workers who are temps is the highest on record, at 52.4 per cent.
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Canadian women's fashion retailer Laura's Shoppe, which owns Laura, Laura Petites and Melanie Lyne, has filed for creditor protection, CBC.ca reported. The company, with more than 150 stores across the country, said it expects to close some underperforming stores but plans to keep doing business as usual while it restructures. Laura admits it experienced large losses in 2012 and 2013, but president Kalman Fisher said sales have since rebounded. A filing under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act protects the retailer from claims by creditors while it revamps its operations.
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The collapse in commodity prices and the rise of the African middle class has flipped the fortune trends of the continent's richest people. "The go-go years of African billionaires whose wealth has been built around oil is over," said Martyn Davies, CEO of Johannesburg, South Africa-based investment research firm, Frontier Advisory. "We have placed far too much emphasis on a handful of people making significant capital through distorted-priced resources.
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Investors issued a vote of no confidence in Greece’s economy on Monday, dumping stocks as trading on the Athens exchange resumed for the first time in five weeks, the International New York Times reported. A plunge of more than 16 percent for the main Greek index and a 30 percent sell-off for bank stocks were the latest signs of Greece’s shattered economy. But the resumption of trading was a necessary step as Greece tries to emerge from controls on financial activity that the government, confronted with a bank run, imposed at the end of June.
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Out in the Atlantic Ocean, 130 miles off the coast of Brazil, an oil ship the length of New York City’s Chrysler building is at the center of an escalating legal war. This battle pits the crude producer founded by Eike Batista, Brazil’s most notorious ex-billionaire, against bondholders who loaned another of his companies $500 million, Bloomberg News reported. That company -- Batista’s shipbuilder, OSX Brasil SA -- lost the rights to the vessel when it defaulted on bonds in March after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2013.
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Bondholders of Ukraine’s third-biggest bank voted in favor of changing terms on $1.3 billion of debt as negotiations continue on restructuring a further $19 billion of sovereign securities, Bloomberg News reported. Creditors of the State Savings Bank of Ukraine, known as AT Oschadbank, agreed to push back maturity dates by seven years and increase coupons on two bonds and a subordinated loan, Chief Executive Officer Andriy Pyshnyi told reporters in Kiev on Monday. More than 90 percent of bondholders were in favor of the new terms.
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A corruption probe threatening to engulf Brazil’s government intensified as police arrested a former top minister of ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for allegedly orchestrating a scheme that looted billions of dollars from oil giant Petróleo Brasileiro SA, The Wall Street Journal reported. Authorities say José Dirceu, who served as Mr.
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Yager, the German developer that was dropped from working on Dead Island 2, has filed for insolvency for the team that was working on the game, Breitbart News reported. Timo Ullmann, Yager CEO, said, “The insolvency filing is a direct result from the early termination of the project and helps protecting our staff. In the course of the proceedings, we gain time to sort out the best options for reorganizing this entity.” Ullmann did say that the Dead Island 2 team’s wages are safe for at least several months.
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Attention will be focused on Greece's embattled banks on Monday when the Athens stock exchange reopens after an absence of nearly a month because of the country's debt crisis, The Telegraph reported. The banks are in a vulnerable position owing to outflows of billions of euros (dollars) from deposits over the past six months. Some €40bn (£28bn) has been withdrawn from Greek banks since December according to the bank association.
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