Bloomberg Hong Kong riot police fired tear gas at crowds in popular shopping districts on Christmas Eve in confrontations that left about two dozen people injured as protesters took to streets and malls to demand greater democracy. Officers used the gas to disperse demonstrators in Mong Kok and outside the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. They also clashed with ...

Bloomberg The new leftist leaders of Germany’s Social Democrats have failed to give Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners a lift in the polls. The SPD were stuck on 13% in the final Insa survey of the year for Bild newspaper, the same as the previous week and down from 20.5% in the most recent general election in 2017. Merkel’s CDU/CSU ...

Bloomberg Tokyo prosecutors arrested a ruling party lawmaker on suspicion of receiving bribes from a Chinese company seeking to invest in the casino industry, dealing a blow to already unpopular plans to open the country to the gaming industry. Liberal Democratic Party politician Tsukasa Akimoto, who had served as a vice minister in charge of promoting the establishment of casinos ...

Bloomberg Typhoon Phanfone continues to bring destructive winds and intense rainfall over parts of central Philippines on Wednesday, a day after forcing hundreds of people to evacuate and stranding thousands of holiday travelers in Asia’s largest Catholic nation. Locally called Ursula, it packed maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 195 kph, ...

Bloomberg India’s economy showed nascent signs it may be turning a corner after six straight months of anemic activity. Two of the eight high-frequency indicators compiled by Bloomberg News came in stronger in November based on a three-month weighted average reading, although that wasn’t enough to move the needle on a gauge measuring overall activity. The dashboard measures “animal spirits,” ...

Bloomberg NMC Health Plc shares gained after the company said it plans an independent review of assertions from “certain third parties,” partly recovering from a slump that followed allegations by short seller Muddy Waters Capital LLC recently. The company has been under siege since Carson Block’s Muddy Waters said its financial statements hint at potential overpayment for assets, inflated cash ...

Bloomberg The presidents of three Japan Post Group companies will step down on Friday amid a scandal involving insurance sales, local broadcaster JNN reported. The report said that the executives would step down at a press briefing on Friday, amid the ongoing scandal involving Japan Post insurance sales. Japan Post said that it is unaware of any plans by the ...

Bloomberg Nissan Motor Co’s third-highest-ranked executive is planning to leave the company to join a leading electric-motor company, an abrupt move that deals yet another blow to the scandal-plagued Japanese carmaker. The shares fell to their lowest in 8 years. Jun Seki, the vice chief operating officer in charge of Nissan’s performance recovery, plans to join Japanese manufacturer Nidec Corp ...

Bloomberg The operator of China’s high-speed rail line between Beijing and Shanghai kicked off its initial public offering, which will for the first time allow investors to buy shares in what is the world’s largest such network. Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co, a unit of state-owned China Railway Corp, plans to sell as many as 6.3 billion new shares, or 12.8% ...

Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc’s former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick is stepping down from the board, severing his last ties to the company he co-founded a decade ago and helped become one of the world’s most valuable, and controversial, startups. Kalanick, 43, has sold all of his remaining shares in the ride-hailing giant and plans to focus on his new ...