Bloomberg China’s armed forces accused the US of “ill intentions” in the South China Sea after an American warship entered waters near the contested Spratly Islands last week. “The US ship’s deliberate provocation during the traditional lunar Chinese New Year festival, which harboured ill intentions, is a naked act of navigational hegemony,” Senior Colonel Li Huamin, spokesman for the People’s ...

Bloomberg The US military has begun issuing furlough warnings to almost 9,000 civilian South Korean employees, as Washington and Seoul remain at loggerheads over President Donald Trump’s demand its ally pay more money for its hosting of American troops. The notices inform workers at American military facilities in South Korea that they potentially face administrative furloughs as of April 1, ...

Bloomberg Alexander Vinnik, a Russian citizen accused by the US of having supervised a digital-currency exchange that helped criminals launder billions of dollars, will probably remain in France to face cryptocurrency-related charges there, his lawyers said in Paris. Vinnik was interrogated by French investigators, the same day he was extradited from Greece, his defense team said at a news conference. ...

What is missing in this campaign, as I have written before and no doubt will write again, is an informative and honest discussion of the role of government in American life. We don’t want to admit that government worth having is worth paying for, through taxes — with the well-known exceptions of recessions and wars, when deficits are often inevitable ...

In the end, Italy’s red wall held up against Matteo Salvini’s assault. The leader of right-wing League had hoped to score a famous win in a regional election in Emilia-Romagna, an area with strong leftist traditions. Voters thought otherwise: Stefano Bonaccini, incumbent Democratic Party governor, won convincingly against his opponent, Lucia Borgonzoni. The populist Five Star Movement collapsed to less ...

The bitter 2018 vintage of British initial public offerings is souring with age. After the dramatic fall of Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc and Funding Circle Holdings Plc, yet another shock came on January 27 from subprime lender Amigo Holdings Plc, which listed around the same time. The company said the environment was worsening and that its founder and ...

In the chilly and rarefied air of Davos, recent days saw yet another surge in the temperature of the world’s debate on climate change. While Greta Thunberg led pleas to political leaders at the World Economic Forum for urgent action to avert climate catastrophe, Donald Trump used the same platform to denounce “prophets of doom.” The virtual confrontation between Trump ...

As part of his promise to deliver the benefits of Brexit after the UK leaves the European Union on January 31, Boris Johnson has set a goal of doubling the rate of economic growth after the UK leaves the European Union (EU). That aspiration could be treated as a rhetorical flourish, like Donald Trump’s belief that the United States can ...

The consensus is that the US consumer is still strong enough to propel the economy forward even though the manufacturing sector has weakened. This view underpins expectations for improved corporate earnings in 2020. But the hard economic data strikes a discordant note. In particular, growth in industrial production on a year-over-year basis remains in a decisive downturn, sliding deeper into ...

Being a shopping-mall landlord is a risky business in the age of e-commerce, even in retail-crazy Singapore. So it’s only sensible that CapitaLand Mall Trust is merging with CapitaLand Commercial Trust, which owns offices. The $6.2 billion deal between the two sister real estate investment trusts, or REITs, will create a property owner of some heft. The combined entity will ...