Aurelia Butler

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian rouble firmed slightly on Tuesday after initially easing beyond 60 against the dollar, while shares in leading internet firm Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) outperformed the market after the company said it was selling some assets to state-controlled rival VK.At 0810 GMT, the rouble was 0.1% stronger against the dollar at 59.80 after hitting 60.41 as it headed away from a near four-week high of 57.70 it reached on Friday.Against the euro, the rouble gained 0.1% to 59.40 as the European currency dropped to a fresh two-decade trough against the greenback. Alfa Bank said in a note that the rouble was poised to advance as the end-of-month tax period approached.Month-end tax payments usually prompt export-focused companies to convert their foreign currency revenues to meet local liabilities.Year-to-date, the rouble has become the world’s best-performing currency as a result of capital controls that Russia has imposed to mitigate financial stability risks.Rouble volatility has subsided after wild swings that saw it hit a record low of 121.53 to the dollar on the Moscow Exchange in March soon after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. It then rallied to a seven-year peak of 50.01 in June.On the stock market, the dollar-denominated RTS index rose 0.9% to 1,184.6 points. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 1% higher at 2,249.7 points.Shares in Yandex jumped 2.3% after it said it had agreed to sell its news aggregator and yandex.ru homepage to state-controlled rival VK, a dramatic move that could further limit Russians’ access to independent media.For Russian equities guide seeFor Russian treasury bonds see More

In an interview with TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, a nightly newscast with the largest audience in Brazil, the far-right politician insisted without evidence there had been fraud in past Brazilian elections.Bolsonaro did not mention the electronic voting system that he has attacked relentlessly for months, alleging they are open to manipulation. But the former army captain said the military should have a role in deciding the transparency of the vote.Opinion polls show Bolsonaro trailing in the presidential race to leftist rival, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who governed from 2003-2010 when Brazil’s economy was booming.Bolsonaro said he had received a country in a bad economic situation compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and then the Ukraine war and had managed to pull through.Among his achievements, he mentioned the increase of monthly welfare payments for low-income families he said would benefit 20 million Brazilians, a handout that polls show has improved his numbers in recent weeks and narrowed Lula’s advantage.Bolsonaro dismissed reports that deforestation in the Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has surged on his watch because he has dismantled enforcement policies. Instead, he charged that the government’s environmental protection agency Ibama has committed abuses by destroying heavy equipment that is usually seized in the rainforest from illegal gold miners.Bolsonaro added Brazil’s Amazon was the size of Western Europe and the country preserved 66% of its green areas. “Brazil does not deserve to be attacked this way. We will try to improve (Brazil’s image abroad),” he said.Concerns over his failure to stop deforestation has led to resistance in the European Union to ratifying a free trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur.Bolsonaro said supply problems caused by the Ukraine war have now made the EU want to speed up conclusion of the trade pact. More

Prosecutor Diego Luciani accused Fernandez de Kirchner, a still-influential voice for the left wing of the ruling Peronist party, of defrauding the state and involvement in a scheme to divert public funds while president between 2007 and 2015.The sentence will be known in months, according to local media, although Fernandez de Kirchner could appeal it to higher courts, which would take years to reach a final verdict.”This is probably the biggest corruption maneuver that has ever been known in the country,” Luciani said in arguing for the sentence, which has fueled fresh political tension in the South American country.On Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), Fernandez de Kirchner, who testified in court in 2019, said she was facing a “media-judicial firing squad” and “not a constitutional court.”The former president added that she was not given an opportunity to testify on new elements of the case and would present her defense on social media on Tuesday.Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez condemned the decision on Twitter, describing the decision in a statement as a case of judicial persecution.”None of the acts attributed to the former president have been proven,” the statement said.The prosecutor also requested a lifetime ban on Fernandez de Kirchner from holding public office.Later on Monday, local police dispersed dozens of protesters in front of Kirchner’s house in the capital of Buenos Aires, with camps both against and in support of the prosecutor’s request, local television showed.The investigation seeks to establish whether she and other officials in her administration favored firms owned by businessman Lazaro Baez in the bidding processes for dozens of public works in the southern region of Patagonia, many of which were overpriced or were not completed.Many experts suspect that the allegedly diverted capital would have returned to the hands of the Kirchner family through their companies. More

BENGALURU (Reuters) – South Korea’s central bank will raise its key interest rate again on Thursday to fight inflation, according to a Reuters poll of economists, but they are divided on how high borrowing costs will be by the year-end.Inflation in South Korea accelerated to an almost 24-year high in July of 6.3% and was expected to continue to rise for a few more months, leaving the Bank of Korea (BOK) with little choice but to remain aggressive. All but one of the 36 economists polled Aug. 16-22 forecast the Bank of Korea will raise its policy rate by 25 basis points to 2.50% at its Aug. 25 meeting. One expected a 50 basis point hike. If the majority view prevails, it would take rates to twice where it was before the pandemic. “With headline inflation accelerating in July and core inflation rising, containing price pressures will remain a top priority, with rate hikes on the cards,” noted Krystal Tan, economist at ANZ. “We maintain that the BOK’s rate hiking cycle will end in 2022.”Although inflation was expected to peak soon, and with stronger growth headwinds, economists were divided on where rates would be by the year-end. Three said the central bank would stop at 2.50%, half of respondents said at 2.75%, 14 said 3.00% and one had a 3.25% forecast. Most economists expected the central bank to then stop, making it one of the first major Asian central banks to end its monetary policy tightening. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Reserve Bank of Australia and Reserve Bank of India are not expected to reach their peak rates until 2023. “The BOK was really on the front foot when it came to the need for monetary policy normalisation. So, the fact we are expecting them to slow is really a trend we expect to see from other central banks in our region as well,” said Katrina Ell, senior economist at Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) Analytics. Nearly 90% of respondents, 30 of 34, who answered an additional question expected a 25 basis point hike in October but 53% expected no rise in November. The central bank has raised rates by 175 basis points since August 2021, including by an unprecedented half a percentage point in July. That along with worries of slowing global growth and weak Chinese import demand support the case for slowing the pace of rate hikes. Nearly 80%, 21 of 27 economists expected rates to be 2.75% or lower by end-2023. The median showed a 25 basis point cut in the first quarter of 2024. More

The median of inflation expectations for the next 12 months fell to 4.3% in August from 4.7% in July, which was the highest since the monthly survey of consumers began in February 2002. Meanwhile, the Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) rebounded to 88.0 in August, though still below the 100-mark that divides optimism and pessimism, after falling for three straight months to 86.0 in July, which was the lowest since September 2020.The finding comes two days before the Bank of Korea’s rate decision on Thursday, following an unprecedented half-point rate hike to 2.25% in July.Asia’s fourth-largest economy is expected to lose momentum this year as downside risks to exports and consumer spending have risen from slowing global demand and higher interest rates.South Korea’s annual inflation accelerated to 6.3% in July from 6.0% in June, hitting the fastest rate since late 1998, while other figures also indicated the pace of price rises may be near a peak.The survey polled 2,400 households in urban areas for inflation expectations and consumer sentiment among other topics, between August 8-16. More