Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in will send his top national-security adviser as well as his chief spy as special envoys to Pyongyang on Monday in a bid to persuade Kim Jong Un to open talks with Washington, in the latest bid to avoid a potential conflict over the country’s nuclear program. The 10-member group will be led by Chung ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia aims to build a defense industry at breakneck speed, and it’s ready to look beyond its traditional Western allies for help. The oil-rich kingdom has long been a favourite customer of arms sellers, especially American ones. President Donald Trump announced $110 billion in deals during his trip there last year. Now, 32 year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin ...

Bloomberg Germany’s Social Democrats voted to join Chancellor Angela Merkel’s next government, clearing the last hurdle to her fourth term and restoring a sense of political stability in Europe’s biggest economy. SPD members approved the coalition pact by a wider-than-expected margin, which may make it easier for the party to effectively govern with Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led bloc. The result, unsealed ...

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals will remain in power in Tasmania after claiming victory in state election. “Four years ago you voted for change; today you have voted for no change — to stick with the direction this state is heading and to take our state to the next level,” state Premier Will Hodgman, 48, told supporters, after ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s ruling party became the largest group in the Senate during a closed-door election, strengthening its hand before national polls in July despite legal setbacks and corruption proceedings against its leader Nawaz Sharif. Final results from the Election Commission show candidates affiliated with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won 15 seats, taking their total to 33 in the 104-strong Senate, ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump appeared to praise Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping’s efforts to extend his tenure in a speech to donors, according to a recording released by CNN. “Don’t forget China’s great and Xi is a great gentleman. He’s now president for life,” Trump told Republican backers. The crowd erupted in laughter in response to the remarks made at ...

Can we run the economy ‘hot’? To those who think that President Trump’s economic policy is simply an extended programme to make the rich richer, there is another, more subtle possibility. The focus on the rich, while understandable, simplifies and misrepresents Trump’s larger ambition. This is to create an economy that is operating at the outer edges of its productive ...

Macy’s Inc.’s latest earnings report was a message for doubters: Don’t count us out just yet. The department-store giant said comparable sales in the fourth quarter increased 1.3 percent over a year earlier, an upbeat result for a company that hadn’t recorded growth on this measure since the final quarter of 2014. And the retailer suggested it expects to keep ...

This week’s annual Mobile World Congress comes at a turning point for the industry: 2017 was the first year in four that mobile phone sales fell. The action on the convention hall floor, combined with some nearly buried findings in one operator’s annual results, may signal the next big thing in mobile growth. The smartphone age is certainly not over, ...

If Donald Trump was aiming at China with his lofty proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, he’s a terrible marksman. Not only will Chinese leaders likely brush off the measures. They have good reason to embrace them. China is unquestionably the big, bad wolf of the global steel industry. With roughly ten times the steelmaking capacity of the US, ...