Bloomberg Royal Dutch Shell Plc is appealing a decision by the Australian Taxation Office that has left the company with a bill estimated at A$755 million ($510 million), the Guardian reported. The ATO has been battling with Shell’s local subsidiary for six years regarding tax treatment of its stake in the Browse gas project off the country’s northwest coast, the ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump said trade talks with China are back on after Beijing requested negotiations, easing immediate tensions after a weekend of tit-for-tat tariffs rocked financial markets and fuelled fears that the standoff would drag the global economy into recession. Speaking at the Group of 7 meetings in Biarritz, France, Trump said US officials received two “very productive” ...

Bloomberg German business confidence extended its decline, falling to the weakest level in almost seven years, as a deepening manufacturing slump put Europe’s largest economy on the brink of recession. Germany’s export-centered economy is struggling as global trade tensions worsen. GDP contracted in the second quarter and the Bundesbank predicts it could shrink again in the third, and the US-China ...

Bloomberg The US and Japan agreed in principle on a trade deal that would slash Tokyo’s tariffs on American beef, and other agricultural products, while delaying for now the threat of additional levies on Japanese auto exports to the US. US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the agreement on Sunday on the sidelines of the ...

Bloomberg In its search for a potential factory location in Europe, Tesla Inc. examined areas in Germany’s state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rheinische Post reported. Tesla representatives also inspected possible sites in Lower Saxony, newspaper NWZ reported earlier in the week. In June, CEO Elon Musk called Germany “a leading choice for Europe” in a reply to a tweet asking if ...

Bloomberg The cost of producing hydrogen gas with renewables is likely to plummet in the coming decades, making one of the most radical technologies for reducing greenhouse gases economical. That’s the conclusion of an analysis by BloombergNEF, which said the most abundant element is likely to play a growing role in reducing pollution from power producers and industry. The findings ...

Bloomberg The US said that South Korea’s decision to pull out of an intelligence-sharing deal with Japan endangers American troops — an usually blunt criticism of one of Washington’s closest allies. The Trump administration is disappointed in South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s announcement that his government would stop participating in the 2016 General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan, ...

Bloomberg Calls on Donald Trump to start talks about the last remaining nuclear weapons agreement between Russia and the US remain unanswered, 18 months before it expires, increasing the risk of an unhindered arms race, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman. The consequences will be “quite fatal” if Russia and the US let lapse the 2010 New START treaty ...

Bloomberg Russia said air tests found traces of nuclear isotopes after a deadly blast that killed five atomic scientists and caused a spike in radiation at a remote military facility. Barium-139, barium-140, strontium-91 and lanthanum-140 were found in a cloud of radioactive gases that drifted over the city of Severodvinsk following the explosion on a nearby offshore platform in the ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he knew that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was heading to Biarritz, site of the Group of Seven summit, and supported French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to invite him amid growing signs of active diplomacy at work. The US leader pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, leaving Macron and his European allies ...