ABU DHABI / WAM The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has begun carrying out procedures related to implementing the latest Cabinet decision on excise goods, excise tax rates, and the method of calculating the excise price, issued in August 2019, which expanded the scope of excise goods to include electronic smoking devices and liquids, and sweetened drinks. The new decision goes ...

Bloomberg When a Chinese state-owned survey vessel sailed into waters off Vietnam’s coast in early July, it unleashed a high-seas standoff with trillions of dollars at stake that risks drawing in Russia and the US. For weeks now the Haiyang Dizhi 8 has zigzagged across a square block of water to study the seabed in an active drilling block operated ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on container lines to avoid using a new Arctic shipping route to protect the environment. Speaking at the start of the Group of Seven summit in Biarritz in southwest France on Saturday, Macron said France’s biggest shipping line, CMA CGM, has committed not to use the so-called Northern Sea Route being promoted by ...

Bloomberg It’s getting tougher to bet on oil in the age of Trump trade tweets and Chinese retaliation, with hedge funds getting it wrong for a seventh time in nine weeks. This time around, short-sellers made their biggest retreat in a year in week ended August 20, slashing by 25% their wagers that West Texas Intermediate crude would decline, data ...

Bloomberg A Nigerian high court ordered the government to renew Shell Petroleum Development Co.’s operating license for the Oil Mineral Lease 11 field, which was withdrawn earlier this year, Lagos-based Punch newspaper reported. The Federal High Court in Abuja, ordered the license be renewed for maximum 20 years, and not 30 years the oil major was seeking, the newspaper reported. ...

Bloomberg North Korea launched more missiles on Saturday, the latest in the most prolific series of tests since US President Donald Trump took office. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said two ballistic missiles were launched from south Hamgyong, travelling about 380 kilometres and reaching a maximum altitude of 97 kilometres. They landed outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Japan’s Coast Guard said ...

Bloomberg US sanctions against Venezuela are making successful talks with the opposition impossible, said a key ally of President Nicolas Maduro, demanding that President Donald Trump immediately act to drop them. “The stone in the way of any negotiation is sanctions,” Tarek William Saab, Venezuela’s public prosecutor, said in a rare interview at the Public Prosecutor headquarters office in downtown ...

Bloomberg A Tunisian media mogul who’s running for the presidency in next month’s elections was detained, after authorities ordered his arrest for alleged tax evasion and money laundering. Nabil Karoui, the owner of Nessma TV, was stopped by security services while traveling outside the capital and is currently in prison in Tunis, the nterior Ministry said in a statement. The ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s beleaguered Chief Executive Carrie Lam called on protesters to break the deadlock gripping the city, after she held a meeting with former officials and other prominent people to find a way out of the impasse. About 30 people were invited to the gathering at Government House on Saturday, including ex-transport chief Anthony Cheung and Cardinal John Tong, ...

Bloomberg Italy’s next government — whoever winds up leading it — will have a lengthy list of problems needing immediate attention. Thorny issues include getting a budget that complies with European Union deficit rules through parliament by the end of December, finding a solution to the environmental pollution charges threatening thousands of jobs at Europe’s largest steel plant and working ...