Reuters Danaher Corp said it would buy medical diagnostics company Cepheid in a deal valued at $4 billion, including debt, that will strengthen its presence in molecular diagnostics. Danaher, which develops technology for the dental, life sciences, diagnostics and environmental industries, spun off its industrial division in July to focus on science and technology. Piper Jaffray analysts said the ...

  AFP Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, has placed US group Duke Energy and three subsidiaries on its blacklist for causing “unacceptable” environmental damage, Norway’s central bank said on Wednesday. The fund, which is worth around $900 billion has sold its stakes in the companies in line with a recommendation from its Ethics Council in April. The Council ...

  Bloomberg UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said he understands the risks posed to Britain’s financial industry by the vote to leave the European Union and the importance of limiting the fallout on banks. ”It is important Britain maintains its status as a great place for financial services,” Hammond said in a statement. “The government stands ready to ...

  AFP German auto giant Volkswagen (VW) and China’s Anhui Jianghuai Automobile are in talks to build electric cars together, the firms announced Wednesday, the latest possible tie-up in a burgeoning Chinese market for clean-energy vehicles. Volkswagen said the two carmakers had signed a memorandum of understanding at its Wolfsburg headquarters to explore the possibility of a joint venture focussed on ...

AFP Industrial production in Germany unexpectedly fell back sharply in July amid sluggish global demand, official data showed Wednesday, fuelling concern of a “further cooling” of the economy. July saw production 1.5 percent lower than the previous month in Europe’s largest economy, correcting for price, calendar and seasonal effects, the federal statistics office Destatis said. The figure fell far short ...

  The Group of 20 meeting last weekend received only light coverage from the press and market analysts. Imagine my surprise when I read the content-heavy 48-paragraph statement issued at the conclusion of the gathering by country leaders. Either few took the trouble to read the communique or, more likely, its contents were dismissed as wishful thinking that wouldn’t be ...

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have adjusted her policies after last year’s refugee influx. But on Sunday, she was punished anyhow by voters in her own constituency of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. That’s one sign that the EU migration crisis is far from resolved yet. Ever since March, when Merkel rammed through a European Union deal with Turkey under which undocumented ...

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a humiliating electoral defeat in her home state on Sunday. The result, driven by a growing backlash against her policy on refugees, calls for hard thinking not just on her part but also from Germany’s partners in the European Union. Voters in rural Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a tiny state of 1.6 million, didn’t just defeat ...

  Nearly one in every 200 children in the world today is a refugee. Kids now make up about half of all refugees. The stats may not appear as alarming as the ground situation is. Many miseries that the child migrants face are hidden from the view. Displaced undocumented children face the risk of abuse. A new UNICEF report reveals ...

  Despite Hillary Clinton’s recent slip in the polls, she has a big political opportunity, even though some of her advisers might regard it as a curse: She can run as the candidate who represents the “mainstream” leadership of both parties and knows how to fix our broken political system. In a year when anti-elitism has been a dominant theme ...