AFP The world edged closer to a 2020 goal to repair vast areas of damaged natural lands and forests, officials announced at the world’s largest conservation meeting. Malawi and Guatemala committed to restoring a total of 4.54 million hectares (11 million acres) of degraded land, officials said at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress. ...

  AFP The long-awaited sale of Formula One to an American media group is to be completed next week, according to media reports on Sunday. The well-sourced German magazine Auto Motor und Sport said that the sport’s veteran commercial ring-master Bernie Ecclestone had confirmed the deal at the Italian Grand Prix. The magazine reported that Ecclestone said Liberty Media will ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s top sovereign wealth fund is negotiating to buy a stake in one of the kingdom’s most ambitious real estate projects as Riyadh restructures the economy to cope with low oil prices, a source familiar with the plan said. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) aims to invest in King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) on the Red ...

  Bloomberg Japanese government bonds’ worst week in a month sent 10-year yields almost back up to zero amid speculation the Bank of Japan will tweak its debt-buying program this month and concerns that demand will decline at auctions this month. Benchmark yields climbed to minus 0.02 percent, the highest since March 16 in Tokyo. Forty-year yields advanced to 0.57 ...

  DUBAI / Reuters The Gulf’s largest listed lender, Qatar National Bank (QNB), said on Sunday it would open a representative office in Cuba, becoming the first bank from the rich energy-exporting countries of the Gulf to do so. Government-controlled QNB has obtained regulatory approvals needed to open the office, in line with its strategy of expanding in selected countries, ...

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) added a digit to its odometer to read 1,000,000,000,000. Euros, not kilometers. That’s the amount of excess liquidity now sloshing through the financial system — equivalent to almost 3,000 euros ($3,360) for each of the 340 million people in the 19-nation region. The money is created by the ECB through a program of ...

  Bloomberg Poland favours government-controlled insurer PZU SA as the buyer for Bank Pekao SA, the country’s second-largest bank held by Italy’s UniCredit SpA, with the price representing the main hurdle, Finance Minister Pawel Szalamacha said. Speaking to Bloomberg at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy, Szalamacha said his government backs a possible deal but insisted this was up to ...

  Bloomberg One of Hong Kong’s potentially most lucrative initial public offerings in recent years has bankers facing some difficult choices. Anbang Insurance Group Co., known for its aborted $14 billion attempt to buy Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., has asked investment banks to pitch for roles on an IPO of its life insurance assets. While the recent dearth ...

  Hangzhou / AFP The US said on Sunday it had not yet struck a hoped-for deal with Russia on stemming the violence in Syria’s brutal civil war, blaming Moscow for backtracking on issues it thought were settled. President Barack Obama said earlier that the two sides were “working around the clock” on the sidelines of a summit in China, but ...

  Hangzhou / AFP The United States is committed to bringing the perpetrators of the attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to justice, President Barack Obama said on Sunday. Ankara accuses US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of being behind the July uprising. At talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 summit, Obama said: “We will make sure that ...