Bloomberg An Australian company is introducing its own version of bitcoin that will let homeowners and businesses sell excess energy generated from their rooftop solar panels to neighbors, without a middleman taking a cut. As of Monday, Perth-based Power Ledger had sold about 57 percent of the 100 million so-called “power tokens” offered at 8.8 US cents a piece since ...

ISTANBUL / ANKARA / Reuters Saudi Telecom Company is in the lead to buy the 55 percent of fixed-line operator Turk Telekom owned by Oger Telecom, sources said, adding that the Turkish government could acquire the $3.9 billion stake if those talks fail. The potential deal comes as Oger, Turk Telekom’s biggest shareholder, faces increasing pressure from creditor banks after ...

Bloomberg EuroMena Funds, a Beirut-based private-equity firm that has raised $350 million since 2006, plans to almost double assets as it seeks investments in Lebanese-owned companies operating abroad. After a decade of deploying most of its capital in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, EuroMena’s latest fund has spent $55 million for stakes in a toilet-paper manufacturer in Nigeria, a Tunisia-based operator ...

Bloomberg Though the downfall of the man heading Samsung Group, South Korea’s most powerful conglomerate, may seem an ominous omen for the country’s family-run business empires, the jailing of billionaire Lee Jae-Yong could end up offering some relief to chaebol dynasties. That’s because Lee, who on Friday received one of the harshest sentences ever handed to a chaebol leader, could ...

Bloomberg Nearly 10 months after India’s unprecedented ban on high value notes that was designed to tackle entrenched corruption, bribery continues to oil the wheels of business in Asia’s third-largest economy, according to a US risk management firm that advises foreign investors. Gifting of land, houses, luxury watches and sponsoring expensive travel abroad are now the preferred bribes as tax ...

Bloomberg The world’s first diamond futures exchange begins trading in India on Monday, enabling companies in the largest producer of the cut and polished gems to better hedge price risks. “Indian manufacturers most require this type of financial product,” said Sanjit Prasad, managing director of the Indian Commodity Exchange Ltd. India carries the price risk of holding huge inventories of ...

Bloomberg ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ US President Donald Trump’s strategy for the nation’s longest-running war in Afghanistan will meet the same fate as the plans of his predecessors, according to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Failure. “From day one we have been saying very clearly the military strategy in Afghanistan has not worked and it will not work,” Abbasi, who took over ...

BEIRUT / Reuters The Syrian army and Hezbollah on Monday prepared to escort IS fighters to eastern Syria from their enclave on the border with Lebanon under an agreement following a week-long offensive against the extremist group. It will end any Sunni militant presence on the border, an important goal for Lebanon and the Shi’ite Hezbollah group, and is the ...

BANGKOK / Reuters Thailand’s defence minister on Monday said he did not know the whereabouts of former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, days after she failed to show up for a verdict in her trial for negligence at which she faced up to 10 years in prison. Yingluck, whose government was ousted in a 2014 coup, fled via Singapore, sources in ...

Bloomberg Anna Kinberg Batra stepped down as leader of Sweden’s biggest opposition party as the center-right bloc finds itself in disarray one year ahead of elections in the largest Nordic economy. Kinberg Batra resigned amid growing internal discontent over her stewardship and falling support in public opinion polls. Only 6 percent of all voters and a third of her party’s ...