Dubai / Reuters Saudi Arabian companies already grappling with the effects of low oil prices and government austerity measures face a fresh challenge from new accounting standards that could provide windfall gains for some but saddle others with higher charges. As part of efforts to bring the Saudi stock market into the global investing mainstream, the Capital Market Authority ...

  Benaulim / AFP Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Sunday a rising tide of protectionism and anti-globalisation was endangering the world economy’s still fragile recovery as BRICS leaders vowed to forge closer business and trade ties. At a summit in the Indian tourist hub of Goa, host Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leaders of China, Russia, Brazil and South ...

  Yangon / AFP Four people are confirmed dead and dozens more are feared to have drowned after an overloaded ferry sank on Myanmar’s Chindwin River, local authorities said Sunday. A total of 154 people have been rescued so far since the boat capsized early Saturday morning as it travelled from Homalin to the city of Monywa, northwest of Mandalay. ...

  Bangkok / AFP Thai police on Sunday charged a woman with royal defamation after a mob demanded action over a Facebook post allegedly smearing the “heir and regent”, as the country mourns King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thailand has one of the world’s harshest lese majeste laws, with jail terms of up to 15 years for each count of defaming or ...

  Manila / AFP Typhoon Sarika lashed the main Philippine island of Luzon on Sunday, flattening homes and toppling trees and power pylons as more than 12,000 people fled to safer ground, officials said. Minor landslides and flooding were also reported a day after the cyclone brushed past the remote eastern island of Catanduanes and left one person drowned and three ...

  London / AFP The United States, Britain and the UN peace envoy to Yemen on Sunday urged the warring parties in the country’s civil war to declare a ceasefire they said could start within days. The United Nations envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, said: “We are here to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities, which will be declared ...

  Portsmouth / AFP Donald Trump has challenged his rival Hillary Clinton to a drug test before their next debate, suggesting the Democrat was “pumped up” on performance-enhancing drugs in a stunning new twist to the brutal White House race. The unsubstantiated attack from the Republican nominee came as a new poll out Sunday shows Clinton with a four-point lead ...

  A Wall Street executive offered advice on how to deflect criticism for taking money from Wall Street. There was an invitation to spend a weekend at George Soros’s Southampton estate. These and many other tidbits are in the leaked e-mails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Guess what else? It turns out that politics influences the Democratic nominee’s ...

  Uber now offers rides in more than 200 U.S. cities. Rival Lyft does too. But Uber gets an estimated 60 percent of its U.S. revenue from just five metropolitan areas (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington), according to a new report from the research firm 7Park Data. There is a similar regional concentration in ride-business data ...

  Now that this year’s Nobel Prizes have all been awarded, we can play the annual game of wondering what other fields should be included. Why should the great scientists, writers, peacemakers and economists have all the fun? (And get all the money?) Every year there’s a new suggestion: Why not visual art? Why not athletics? This time around, the ...